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TRAVELS IN EUROPE : 



ITS PEOPLE AND SCENERY, 



EMBBACINQ 



GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS 



PRINCIPAL CITIES, BUILDINGS, SCENERY, AND MOST NOTABLE 
PEOPLE IN ENGLAND AND THE CONTINENT. 



_V 



BY 



GEOEGE H. CALVEET, ESQ. 



TWO VOLS. IN ONE. 




BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY G. W. COTTRELL,36 CORNHILL. 
1860. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, ov 

GEORGE H. CALVERT, 

In the Clerk's Office of the D:&irict Court for the Southern District of New York. 



G 






PEE FACE. 



CJertain classes of books are such favorites, that nearly 
the whole responsibility of publishing ihem should be borne 
by the public. The eagerness with which they are read 
is a premium on their production. The traveller in foreign 
lands finds the privacy of his letters and journal encroached 
upon while writing them, by the thought that they may be 
turned into " copy " for the printer. To so many others 
has this happened, that the possibility of its happening to 
himself cannot be kept out of his mind, spotting, it may 
be, the candor of his statements. Afterwards, when he 
nas been at home long enough for the incidents of his jour- 
ney to grow by distance of time into reminiscences, what 
he wrote on the spot comes upon him with unexpected 
freshness and distinctness. Himself gets information and 
entertainment from the perusal of his notes, letters and 
diary. In this state of semi- self-complacency, the public 
urgently invites him to its broad tables — invites him 
through the kindness wherewith it has loaded so many of 
his book-blazoned fellow-travellers. He begins to criticise 
his manuscript ; to shape it by excisions, by additions ; to 
calculate quantity ; to confer with a popular publisher, — 
who is of course in close league with the public, — until at 
last, he finds that his manuscript has been made away with 
and in its stead he has proof sheets. His -private doings 



PREFACE. 



and seeings, and thinkings, and feelings, are about to cease 
to be private and to become public, and himself is to be 
thrust in every page personally before the vv^orld by the 
printers, notvs^ithstanding his constant endeavor to merge 
his individuality, and, like modest editors, to multiply and 
disperse himself by means of the indefinite we. He is in 
the case to claim the favor that is shown at a feast to a 
guest especially summoned for the entertainment of the 
company. The host is the public, whose part it is to bear 
with his waywardness, to be indulgent towards his short- 
comings, to overlook his deficiencies. The author of the 
following little volume scarcely need add, that this claim 
of the author-guest is strong in proportion as he possesses 
the one virtue, the rare virtue, ol brevity. 

March, 1846. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Vi.Ot 

The Rhine — ^Bingen — Wiesbaden ' 7 



CHAPTER II. 
Heidelberg — Sunset — Prussian Soldiery . ; . . , 11 

CHAPTER III. 

The Neckar — Stuttgardt — Ulm — Napoleon 14 

CHAPTER IV. 

Lake of Constance — Switzerland — Lake of Thun — ^The Tungfrau — 
Lauxerbrunnen — The Wengern Alp 19 

CHAPTER V. 

Mountaineers — Isolation — Practical Art — Man's Agents — Princes 
and Priests — Sacerdotal Despotism — Catholicism — Jesuitism — 
Conclusions 23 

CHAPTER VI. 

Swiss Republic — Baden-Baden — The Nun — Peace-Congress in Frank- 
fort ... 81 



iv CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

PAOB 

Stage-coach and Car — Conservatism — German Burgher and Postilion 
— Primary Education in Germany 3*7 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Marburgh — Monument — Railroad to Cassel — Cassel to Dresden . 42 

CHAPTER IX. 
A Day in Dresden 47 

CHAPTER X. 

"Weimar — Cemetery — Schiller's Study — Gall and Goethe — Cranium 

OF Schiller — Weimar's high Inhabitants 55 

CHAPTER XL 

Eisenach — The Wartburg — Luther 64 

CHAPTER Xn. 

Who followed Luther — Races — Color — Christianity — Protestants 
AND Catholics — English and Spanish America — Conversions to 
Romanism — Religion 12 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Supper-Table at the " Half- Moon" in Eisenach — Annadale — Grimm's 
Tales — ^Migration Westward 88 

CHAPTER XIV. 
GnssEN — LiEBiQ — ^Marienbees — Priesnitz — The Rhine . . .95 



CONTENTS. V 

CHAPTER XV. 

F.AGK 

Cologne — Dusseldorf — Aktists — Leutzk's Washington — Freiugrath 99 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Cleanuness — ^Belgian Prosperity — Statistics 104 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Fbance — Democracy — Bonaparte — Louis Phillipe — Louis Bonaparte . 110 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
A Day in Paris . 119 

CHAPTER XIX. 
A Walk in the Louvre , 151 

CHAPTER XX. 
Fkaoments 16i 



SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



CHAPTEE I. 



THE RHINE BINGEN ^WIESBADEN. 



To be taken up by a steamboat on the Rhine is always a lively 
incident. Out from her level path to the pier the strenuous gay 
boat glides with a grace that captivates the traveller, like the 
smiling welcome of a beautiful hostess. On the morning of 
Monday the 22d of July, 1850, there was a fog on the river, so 
that the Goethe, due at Boppart at half-past one, did not arrive 
from.Coblenz till past two. Seated on the quay with cheerful 
company, we escaped the vacuum which, to the idle as well as 
to the busy, ever comes with waiting. 

To be ushered of a sudden, hungry, upon the scene of a repast 
that has been, with the fragments of good cheer strewn around, is 
not a happy beginning. When we got on board dinner was over. 
Under the awning, at the long, narrow tables, with tall, empty 
Rhenish bottles in the midst, a medley of nations were chatting 
German, French, English, with the volubility and complacency 
of satisfied appetites. 

Man is the creature of food. To be well fed is the first con- 
dition of thriving manhood. Let the others take rank as they may, 
this is the basis. The British tar was right, who, on seeing the 

beef destined for an American man-of-war, exclaimed, " D 

'em, no wonder they fight so." Let Europe look to it. The 
twenty-five millions of the United States take in daily as much 



8 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

nutriment as almost double the number of any other Christian 
feeders. Not that the Americans are overfed : the Europeans 
are fearfully underfed. John Bull is ge-tting puzzled and alarmed 
at the pace at which Jonathan is " going ahead." Let him be- 
think him, that while to his millions roast beef is a tradition or a 
festival, to ours it or its equivalent is a daily smoking reality. 
Democracy and " a good bellyful" go together. The which 
lakes precedence as cause, we will not now stop to determine. 
Our well-being depends primarily upon what we eat. Nature 
ordains that man should feed well, plenteously, variously. To 
mortify the flesh, except to counterbalance a surfeit, is a sacrilege 
and an impertinence. 

Reflections like these come up, without forcing, from an empty 
stomach into the brain of a man waiting for his dinner. 

I had not talked three minutes with my neighbor at the table 
before he brought in California. Neither the resumption of pay- 
ment by defaulting States, nor the feats of the Mexican war, have 
raised us in European esteem so much as the possession of Cali- 
fornia. Virtue with the Romans meant courage, it now means 
cash. If men were not hypocrites they would call the Rothschilds 
the most virtuous family in Europe. California is in everybody's 
thought and mouth. Gold ! gold ! Protean potentate, flexible 
omnipotence, gentle conqueror — what can it, what can it not ? By 
giving it, we get peace within and good-will without; by lending 
it, gratitude and six per cent. ; by promising it, the service of the 
strong ; by spending it, profit or pleasure ; by hoarding it, we 
have the more of it, and by having it we are masters of most that 
the world prizes. He who speaks contemptuously of gold is a 
dissembler or a simpleton. 

The Rhine, fatted by the maternal glaciers of Switzerland, 

rushes down resistless, like a headlong herd of bufialoes on a 
prairie. But we drive steadily up, and heed not his torrent, 
tamins: his counter-flood to our will with the wizard hand of 



BINGEN. 9 

Genius. How divine, to wrest from the great heart of Nature a 
pregnant secret, and endow the world with a new force, immeas- 
urable, infinite. The boats on the Rhine have good fitting names, 
but not one of them the best and fittest, the name of Fulton. — I 
look up, and above the modern landscape, still cresting his vine- 
mantled hill, a stern old ruin paints his jagged outline on the 
sunny sky, and brags of the past, like some weather-beaten grand- 
papa. At the water's edge the blackened broken wall fences in 
part the compact little town, from whose midst rises the bulky 
church, triste, heavy, unsightly from without ; triste, chill, 
prosaic within ; where mechanical priests still drive their huck- 
stering trade, selling what they have not earned, and cannot 
possess without earning, fuddling the green imaginations with 
doctrinal strong-waters, compressing the • expansive intellect, 
paralyzing the vivid soul, frightening to subject, enlarging them- 
selves to belittle the multitude, whom they darken where they 
should enlighten ; thus blaspheming while they affect to pray. 
The churches that arose under the inspiration of Beauty, the 
which it is a joy and an exaltation to behold, are as rare as are 
the spiritually-entitled priests, whom it is a privilege to hear. 

As you stand on the heights in its rear, Bingen smiles up 

to you, enwreathed with vineyards, — Bacchanal Bingen. The 
precious, petted vines, — ^just now in their pride of leaf and fresh 
luxuriance of new juicy shoots, — press up to the walls, and over 
them into the town itself. Opposite, Rudesheim piles its fruitful 
terraces, and a little further is Geisenheim, and beyond Johanis- 
berg, — inspiring names, that stand high and highest on the scroll 
that the traveller pores over with daily renewed zest. All around 
is one green wine- promising abundance. 

The happiest eyes that from the deck of the boat gazed upon the 
warm, expanded landscape between Bingen and Biberich, were 
those of a German, naturalized in the United States, and revisit. 
ing, after ten years' absence, his native Germany. The man 

1* 



10 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

seemed to feel for the first time, in all its fulness, the sweet 
strength of his new ties. The joy of rebeholding the land of his 
birth disclosed to him the intensity of his love for the land of his 
adoption. Of what "we" had and did in America he spoke with 
the glow of one who had been raised to a new dignity. As 
watching the mellow shifting landscape, we talked of America, 
his countenance beamed with a compound delight. Through the 
present enjoyment shone the deeper satisfaction of thoughts that 
were busied with his new home. There, in democratic America, 
he had been reborn and rebaptized. He was conscious that he 
had become a larger, abler man than he could have been in Ger- 
many. He could not conceal his happiness, that he had ex- 
changed a home that was so dear to him for one that was still 
dearer. 

Wiesbaden owes its summer life to two poisons, — its boiling 

mineral spring, and its ravenous roulette-tables. Early in the 
morning, round the " Koch-Brunnen" (boiling spring) a motley 
crowd of pallid dupes cool their smoking glasses to below the 
scalding point, credulously abiding the sulphurous self-infliction 
of repeated seething draughts. In the evening, a denser throng 
encircle in eager morbid silence the gaming-tables, where rich 
and poor, men and women, sick and well, fascinated by the gloat- 
ing eye of Mammon, throw their tens and thousands into the 
monster's maw. On one of the few days that we stopped at 
Wiesbaben, a rich banker lost in a single evening four thousanc 
pounds sterling. I was told of another player whose eyebrowi 
turned white in a few days after continued heavy losses. 

These crowded summer resorts represent the pursuit of pleasure 
under difficulties. 



CHAPTER II. 

HEIDELBERG SUNSET PRUSSIAN SOLDIERY. 

Could a man be said to have ti'avelled from Dan to Beersheba, 
who had compassed the space between the two by steam ? Trav- 
elling implies efTort, a concurrent locomotive activity, and a self- 
guidance on the part of the traveller. Once in a railroad car, he 
is passive, subordinated, without will or authority, with but even 
a tatter of personality left to him, in the shape of his ticket. He 
doesn't travel, he is transported, and is hurriedly thrust out on 
the platform of a station, just as though, instead of being a bag of 
electrified capillaries, he were but a bag of oats. In this way we 
came in a few hours from Wiesbaden to Heidelberg. 

The beautiful structures of man's making rise from the earth 
like a favored growth out of it. They are adopted by Nature. 
The sun rejoices to shine on them. The Castle of Heidelberg we 
reached in time to behold it by a sunset of American gorgeous- 
ness. The rosy atmosphere deepened the expression of the beau- 
tiful inward facade which stood again before us, ever young and 
fresh. Perennial youth is not a fable, or a futile longing : it is 
the gift of Genius to its handiwork, and is the touchstone of Art. 
But a work of genuine art is not only young itself, — it makes you 
young. To revisit it, annihilates time. The intervening years 
are bridged over by a rainbow. 

Through time-rents and vacant casements the rich horizontal 
beams fell with a glow of celestial gladness. From the terrace, 



12 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

the town beneath, with the valley and plain that stretched far 
away towards the burning west, lay in a blissful tranquillity. 
Alas ! only to the outward eye, bribed by the purple opulence of 
light. In this seeming Paradise the ubiquitous Serpent is at work, 
and here is neither bliss nor peace, but in their stead, unrest, 
misery. This magnificent leave-taking between Sun and Earth, 
this illuminated farewell, this broad parting look of love, which 
lights up the countenance of the responsive Earth with an intense ■ 
flush of beauty, — how many see it or share it, of the tens of thou- 
sands there below, on whom it falls ? In torpid imbecility, in 
exasperated conflict, they lie and writhe there, with senses closed 
to the eloquent heavenly message. This beauty, which is for i, 
them, they cannot claim ; this magnificence of nature, they are I' 
too poor to accept. The few who, by fortune or spiritual effort, 
possess freedom enough to enjoy, revel on such spectacles, and 
in them escape from the omnivorous evil around, their imagina- 
tions purged by this transfiguring light. Only for a moment they 
escape, for the ghastly realities can be but momentarily laid. Not 
as the evanescent demons of a dream do these come, but as the 
abiding terrors that leap upon the awakening criminal. So begirt 
are we by implacable hostilities ; self-doomed to have every joy 
shadowed by a sorrow, every love dogged by a hate, every pos- 
session haunted by a fear. 

Descending into the town, we came upon squads of Prussian 
soldiery. Whenever I meet these mechanized men, these soul- 
informed machines, these man-shaped irresponsibilities, I feel 
saddened, humiliated, insulted. Plainer than words they say to 
me, — speak not, think not, act not. In their presence I am ut- 
terly quenched. I feel myself supplanted, and in my place a ' 
musket. In their speechless tramp there is somethimg terrific. 
This steeled silence controls my speech : this noiseless move- 
ment paralyzes my will. 

The European armies hang on the nations, a monstrous idle- 



STANDING ARMIES. 13 

ness, a universal polluting scab. In them are condensed into one 
vast blight the seven plagues of Egypt. Like the " frogs," they 
" come upon the people, into their houses, their bed-chambefs, 
their ovens, their kneading-troughs." How this picture fits them 
in all its traits. Look at those knots of lounging dirty soldiers : 
they swarm and buzz over the whole land, like the " lice and 
flies," only more befouling than these. Are they not " sores and 
blains" on the people, a moral and physical corruption, and a 
drain upon their strength ? " The fire that ran along on the 
ground" — what could realize it more vividly than the march of 
armies, smiting like the " hail" as they pass, both man and beast, 
and herb and tree, and eating like the " locusts" the fruits of the 
earth and every green thing. In the crowning " Plague of Dark- 
ness," the likeness is the most palpable. Standing armies are the 
very fomenters of darkness. Their office is to propagate night 
and make men sleep on. They are coarse, brutalizing Force, in 
contrast and conflict with the subtle, humanizing, liberating power 
of the intellect and heart of man. They are a million-mouthed 
extinguisher plied ceaselessly by the hand of Despotism, to crush 
out the light so fast as it jets up. They exist to enforce man's 
law against God's law, to be the jailers of thought, the execu- 
tioners of freedom. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE NECKAR STUTTGAEDT ULM NAPOLEON. 

Going up the valley of the Neckar, one runs over with im- 
practicable desires, and their tantalizing importunity is an index 
of the overflowing abundance of its. beauties. Kow many sites 
that one longs to halt at for a day ; how many hills that one 
would climb, to compass a wider enjoyment. But we must be 
at Heilbron in time to dine, before taking the railroad to Stiitt- 
gardt. To no one is dinner a more important item in the day's 
account than to your traveller. 

Stvittgardt is a " Residenz." A " Residenz" is a German 
town, lifted into consequence from its being chosen by the sov- 
ereign of a petty dominion for the residence of his petty self and 
his petty court. In the body-politic of Germany, these reiterated 
capitals assume to be ganglia, or nervous centres, whence politi- 
cal vitality (so much as there may be) is diffused through the lit- 
tle circle upon each dependant. They are absorbents rather, 
and of a wen-like turgescence, seeing that they suck in, as well 
of spiritual force as of material substance, more than they impart. 
Here, in a small theatre, is performed, without interlude, the serio- 
comedy of Kingship, wherein Usurpation brazens it out by a pre- 
scription of impudence, and Servility is so low that it knows not 
its own lowness ; where the emptiest actors play often the highest 
parts ; and where the audience is terribly out at elbows, being 
forced to forego, most of them, even some of the necessaries of a 



NAPOLEON. 16 

meagre household, to furnish the gilded trappings of the perform, 
el's. To an American, there is no more astonishing feature in 
European existence, than the patience of the people. Their for- 
bearance is to me a daily marvel. 

Railroads lay open the landscapes of a country ; they take 

to the valleys. At Geislingen, between Stiittgardt and Ulm, there 
is one of rare beauty, which, before you issue out of its upper end, 
narrows to a gorge, where the ascent achieved being of several 
hundred feet, the delight of the traveller is redoubled by admira- 
tion of man's mechanical art. With noiseless ease the heavy 
train rolls up the valley. True power is so unostentatious. I 
know not a clearer image, at once of might and beneficence than 
a silent shower, that slakes the thirst of half a continent. Wit- 
nessing it, one wonders at the large facility of Nature. A great 
idea or discovery, offspring of the prolific brain of man, works and 
fertilizes with a like breadth and bounty. « 

Ulm is historical. It is one of the many Continental towns 

branded with notoriety by the fatal hand of Napoleon. It was 
here, in 1805, while Europe awaited with breathless intentness his 
descent upon England, that Napoleon, sped by his demoniacal in- 
stincts, having rapidly traversed France from Boulogne to Stras- 
burg, suddenly faced the astounded Austrians, cut in two their 
force, and by the capture of sixty thousand men at Ulm, opened 
the campaign, which in a few weeks was to end with the victory 
of Austerlitz. 

What grasping thoughts now swelled that vivid brain, making 
even the new diadem too small for it. As on the daily outspre"ad 
chart the sure eye of the General tracked the marches of the ene- 
my, the Imperial glance ranged far beyond the lines of a cam- 
paign, and kindling with dark power, devoured land after land on 
the broad map of Europe. Between him and his hope, no majes- 
tic figure of Justice, no tearful countenance of Humanity uprose 
to rebuke his desires. The higher his eminence, the less he felt 



16 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

the wants of his fellows. As he ascended, he put away from him 
more and more the nobler attributes of man's nature ; until, at 
the culmination of his path, he had become an icy ambition-mas- 
tered inhumanity, illuminated by intellect. 

He was now rapidly mounting. From the height gained by the 
victory at Ulm, his horizon widened of a sudden. Into the future 
he glared with exultation. The foes before him he felt were his 
prey. He strode on to clutch them. Munich he entered as a 
deliverer. Elated with conquest, exalted by Bavarian homage, 
flushed with ambitious visions, the new Emperor seized in his 
audacious thought a boundless sovereignty. — A courier arrives 
from the west. What brings he ? A tremor seizes Napoleon's 
frame. His face is livid. His lurid eye rolls, as though tortured 
by the brain behind it. Fled are those gigantic visions. Far 
away from the Austrian are his thoughts. He writhes with anger 
and l:^ite. In his hand is the report of the battle of Trafalgar. 

Napoleon has himself said, that but for the obstinate resistance 
of Sir Sidney Smith at Acre, the course of history had been 
changed. From the beginning to the end of his career he was 
baffled by the sturdy Islanders. This was part of his " Destiny." 
At Acre ; at the Nile ; at Trafalgar ; at Copenhagen, where 
their seizure of the Danish fleet, disconcerted again his plans, and 
poured gall into the brimming cup of his German triumphs ; in 
Spain, where he boasted that he would drive that Sepoy (Wel- 
lington) into the Atlantic. At the high tides of his affairs came 
ever this adverse potency to make an ebb in his fortunes. When 
his fortunes had waned, it was England that gave, at Waterloo, 
the finishing blow, and then bound the Imperial Upstart to a far 
rock in the tropical ocean, there to be slowly devoured by the 
vulture of his own sensations. 

This strength to master the giant, England drew from her free- 
dom. The Continental States were all Despotisms. One after 
the other they fell before democratized France. Napoleon, a 



ENGLAOT), RUSSIA. 17 

child of the Revolution, wielded its fiery vigor to crush the old 
tyrannies. His own new one he set up in their stead. He cheated 
France of her revolutionary earnings. In exchange for the gold 
of political rights, he gave her the gilt copper of military glory. 
Her people were again effaced before his will. She becan-'e a 
new despotism amid old despotisms. She was shorn of half her 
new strength. England was the only great nation where the 
People were for something in the State. Like Austria and Russia, 
she had made war against Napoleon for self-preservation ; but 
unlike them she never succumbed to the despot. But for her, 
they would have been his subordinate -fellow-despots. In her the 
feeling of national independence was kept erect by the breath of 
freedom. Napoleon, who would that no one had a will but him- 
self, who hated any and every man's liberty, who strove to centre 
in himself all political vitality, who sucked the French nation 
dry of its liberal juices, felt that England, the only home for 
freedom in Europe, was his most dread foe. He struck at her 
with his whole might ; but her might, nurtured by liberty, was 
stroifger than his, poisoned by slavery. Thus, his very power 
became his weakness. In his prosperity, he had absorbed into 
himself the life-blood of France : in his adversity, he found him- 
self the head of a corpse. 

The Emperor of Russia takes the place of Bonaparte in hatred 
of England. Russia would rule Europe through despotism. Na- 
tional rivalries are not barriers enough to check her. Austria as 
a State, has the most to dread from Russia ; and yet they are, 
through the paramount necessities of despotism, fast allies. 

In the struggle between regal governments, backed by auto- 
cratic Russia, and the governed, or more properly the mis- 
governed, led by France, aristocratic England must back the 
Peoples. And this, not alone ambitiously to thwart Russian 
ambition, but from the deep instincts of her national being, whose 
health and strength spring from the democratic element in her 



18 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Constitution. This makes her the political enemy of Russia and 
Austria, and at the same time gives her the force to witlistand 
them. The intensity of life and the resources of a nation, are in 
proportion to the political participation of the people.* Therefore 
it is, that in Europe, England ranks first in wealth and power. 
Therefore, the United States, — who left behind them in their nest 
the impure political principles, the monarchical and the aristo- 
cratic, and carried with them only the pure principle, the demo- 
cratic — have grown with such astounding rapidity, that already, 
within three generations, in intrinsic resources they take the lead 
of England, their European mother, and who alone could have 
been their mother. In this conflict between Peoples and Princes, 
between Right and Wrong, between Light and Darkness, shall it 
become necessary for. Democratic America to intervene, otherwise 
than with the daily influence^of her principles and her example, 
let the strongest beware. 

By the having achieved a larger liberty than has yet been en- 
joyed, we march in the van of all the nations of the Earth. With 
us, humanity unfolds itself in broader, deeper strata. Liberty 
cannot but purify, enlarge, invigorate. It harbors an inevitable, 
an involuntary virtue. Even martial conquests it transmutes into 
beneficences. Thus, where we conquer, we emancipate. Our 
taking possession is not an enthralment, but a deliverance. We 
cannot subjugate, we must elevate. 

* So morbid is their condition, that in European States there are two di- 
vided constituents, — the governing and the governed, tlie privileged and the 
despoiled. Only to the latter, that is, the laborers, the vile vmltitudc, as M. 
Thiers calls them, is now applied the generic term, the People. With us 
there is but one constituent : we are all People. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LAKE OF CONSTANCE SWITZERLAND — LAKE OF THUN — THE YUNGFEAU— 

LAUTEEBRUNNEN THE WENGERN ALP. 

From Ulm the railroad carries you in a few hours to Fried- 
richshaf'en, on the Lake of Constance. This is one of the best 
routes for entering Switzerland. You come upon it suddenly. 
Tlie transition from plain to mountain is across the Lake, whose 
level expanse magnifies the contrast. You get out of the cars 
and find yourself in the sublime presence. Just over the clear 
water, quite near, is the strange land, that leaves the earth and 
goc-s up into the air, a land built into the heavens. It looked like 
a discovery. 

When the sun shines, travelling in Switzerland is a perpetual 
festival. Mother Earth holds here a jubilee. She welcomes her 
children with the laughter of water-falls, the thunder of avalan- 
ches, the smiles of green valleys, the salutations of towering gran- 
ite, the gaze of snow-glistened peaks. You share the sublime joy 
that beams from her countenance. Your soul and senses expand 
to be in accord with her grandeurs. You are magnified by the 
magnificence around you. Nature here pours out her generic 
power in floods. She is in a mood of Titanic revelry. She leaps 
and shouts. The Earth is heaved up and down in exuberance of 
beauty, so inundated is matter by creative spirit. 

On the 18th of August, 1850, the clouds, that for days had 

darkened the Lake of Thun, and hidden all save the bases of the 
nearest mountains, lifted their compact curtain of sombre vapor, 



20 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUUOPE 

let in light upon the Lake, turned up their broken masses to be 
dried and whitened by the sun, and re-opened to the grateful eye 
the far-shining snow-peaks of the Yungfrau. A good day, like 
a good deed, makes you forget a score of bad ones. 

At two the little steamboat, with its freight of cheerful tourists, 
issued from the port of Thun for its afternoon voyage to the east- 
ern end of the Lake. The deep water, like a deep heart, took in 
and gave back from its tranquil surface the grandeurs and beau- 
ties about it. The mountains and the vapory mimicries of them 
built in the air, painted themselves with the warm light into the 
depths of the Lake, breaking and beautifying with their images 
its liquid level. Before us, to the right, the far Blumlis peaks 
of eternal snow shone whitely among the clouds that they had 
gathered about them as a foil to their own whiteness. Looking 
back when half-way up the Lake, the Niessen, that rises from the 
water's edge a I'egular pyramid a mile high with a base equal to 
its height, presented a magnificent spectacle. To one side and 
round the head of the mountain, an isolated, dark mass of cloud 
clung with a mysterious, threatening look, as though, blackened 
by anger, it would wrestle with it as with a foe. The sunbeams 
behind, that seemed to issue up from the Earth, illuminating one 
edge of the black cloud, added to the splendor of the effect. A 
little later the cloud had risen, and shrouding just the peak of the 
mountain, gave it the aspect of a volcano in travail. 

The Lake being ten miles long, we landed in an hour, and 
soon had our faces turned southward towards the Valley of Lau- 
terbrunnen. From the hot plain of Interlachen, beyond and above 
the high angle formed by the interlapping green mountains of the 
narrow valley, the Yungfrau shone a dazzling front of white, 
clear and palpable, yet dreamy and unreal, from its unearthlike 
beauty. Of the snowy surface, the eye, from this point, takes in 
probably a mile square, a wall of solid white two miles up in the 
air, bounded below by the outline of mountains, in the inverted 



THE YUNGFRAU. 21 

angle of which it seems to rest. It was like an abstraction, a 
sublimated essence of the Earth ; so calm, so pure, out of com- 
mon reach, up-piercing, predominating. Like a high abstraction 
too, infolding the condensed substance of truth — which it cher- 
ishes and widely imparts, to the enrichment of many and distant 
minds — those pre-eminent white peaks are inexhaustible fertiliz- 
ers, sending down from their heavenly elevation food for great 
rivers. In Nature there is no waste, nothing useless or idle. 
Everything works. Everything has its life, its purpose, its de- 
pendence interlocked with its power. The distant flats of FIol- 
land feel the power of this cold pinnacle of the Yungfrau, which 
helps to keep full the freighted channel of the Rhine ; while on 
the rivers that she feeds she is herself dependent, the impalpable 
exhalations fi'om them, condensed in the upper air, furnishing the 
snow, which in her sublime strength she sends back in avalan- 
ches, that give to the torrents, born in her bosom, the volume and 
speed to hurry to the plain. On her summit the Creative Spirit 
is enthroned in unspeakable grandeur, and works thence with a 
ceaseless bounty. 

We were soon inclosed in the wonderful valley, whose sides 
are steep fir-clad mountains, or perpendicular planes of bare rock 
a quarter of a mile high. Down its stony path, the Lutchine, 
whose source is in the near glaciers, comes shouting fiercely, 
as it were the bearer of an angry message from the mountains. 

At the village of Lauterbrunnen, our resting-place for the 
nicrht, is the brook which falls into the valley over a precipice 
nine hundred feet high, and thence, from being shivered into 
spray by the wind and the height of its fall, gets the name of 
Dustbrook (Staubach). Itself a wonder, it is a type of this val- 
ley of wonders. From the twilight below, we beheld, over the 
green mountains, the rosy sunset that bloomed for several min- 
utes on one of the snowy peaks. It was like a glimpse into a 
briirhter world. - 



22 SCEN^ES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

The next morning at half-past five, my young companion and 
myself, well mounted, were on our way up the Wengern Alp. 
The cool clear air gave us a good appetite for a bad breakfast at 
the inn near the top, which we reached at eight. 

Now we are face to face with the white giantess, between us a 
deep, black chasm. We stand a mile above the sea level, and 
even with us is the snow-line of the Yungfrau. The summit is 
more than two miles above the sea ; so that we have, right in 
front and above us, distant from one to two thousand yards, and 
seeming but a few hundred, a mass of vertical snow more than a 
mile high, and several in breadth. The eye strives to grow fa- 
miliar with these sublimities. Far below are all sounds of the 
common Earth. About us is a sublime silence, so wide and deep, 
that nothing small can break it ; common noises only scratch its 
surface ; it is broken by the avalanche. This solid, up-stretch- 
ing, white immensity ! This mountain-measured distance ! This 
unearthly silence ! This thunder-voice of the avalanche ! No- 
thing is ordinary and every-day-like but the sunshine. We 
heard and saw several avalanches. They look like a fall of 
water, and sound like a roar of thunder. Over the chasm an 
eagle is circling. 

Before noon we were again on the road to Griindelwald. As 
we advanced we had in view successively, and at times several or 
all together, the Yungfrau, the Monck, the Eiger, the Wetterhorn, 
the Schreckhorn, and the Finster-Aarlwrn the least of them more 
than 13,000 feet above the'sea-level, and the Aarhorn, the highest 
of the sublime group, over 14,000. What company for a morning 
ride ! We passed the relics of a forest blasted by avalanches, 
and far down the descent a patch of snow. At Gnindelvvald we 
visited one of the glaciers — a huge, creeping, Saurian monster, 
with its tail high up among the eternal snows, its body prostrate 
in a rocky gorge, and its head flattened upon the green valley, 
into which it was spouting turbid water. 



CHAPTER V. 

MOUNTAINEERS ^ISOLATION— PRACTICAL ART MAn's AGENTS PRINCES AND PRIESTS 

SACERDOTAL DESPOTISM CATHOLICISM JESUITISM CONCLUSIONS. 

MmjNTAiNEERS Cannot but be hardy. They have a constant 
fight with Nature to win a livelihood. The stern, fixed features 
of their abode limit their being, and give to it a one-sided inten- 
sity. From these causes they are courageous, independent, Avith 
a strong, fond clinging to their home. Witness the Swiss, the 
Caucasians, the Highlanders of Scotland. At the same time, 
from being isolated and confined, they are inflexible and station- 
ary. Dogged, persevering, tough, they are not expansive, not 
progressive. 

Isolation withers whether man or comnKinity. The first need 
for human growth is contact. The closer, wider, more varied the 
contact, the stronger, fuller, straighter will be the growth. Heeren 
says justly, that a great source of Phenician, Grecian, Roman 
development was the Mediterranean. Besides its practical facili- 
ties, a sea acts healthfully on the mind by motion and fluidity, 
inviting its capabilities, giving it a broad impulse. Here is an 
immensity, and yet to be compassed, — a boundlessness, and yet 
to be explored. The Swiss want this ever-urgent opportunity of 
expansion. Their geographical completes their political isolation, 
their country being withal circumscribed. The very sublimities 
of their land are practically a hindrance, rather than a further- 
ance. These awful heights do not lift up, they press down the 



24 SCEISTES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

people. These grand glaciers feed the Rhine and the Rhone and 
the Tessino, for the use of others. The centres of Swiss culture 
are away from proximity with avalanches and precipices, in the 
midst of warm arable fields, at Ziirich and Geneva, near the 
frontiers of Gei'many and France. 

A rugged, ungenerous soil, inland, cannot rear a strong people. 
Scotland and New England could not have nurtured so thorough 
a breed, but for having at their door the land-embracinfj ocean. 
Through it, the whole world, open to their enterprise, is made 
tributary to their invention. For development, nations need the 
sea. The ancients had the Mediterranean. Since that the earth 
has grown larger, and nations with it. The Atlantic is now the 
Mediterranean. Soon all the oceans will form but one Mediter- 
ranean for all the continents — a universal path for intercommuni- 
cation among all the peoples. 

With an ever deeper embrace Art encircles her elder sister, 

Nature ; the two co- working with man for his deliverance. The 
highest service of practical Art is, to bring men together. For 
this, greater instruments are needed in the modern enlarged field, 
than in the ancient confined one. Types, steam, electricity, these 
are the mighty modern instruments. They are at once the signs 
and means of elevation. They are cause after having been 
effect.* They denote moral as well as intellectual activity ; for 
in productive action there is always virtue. The most selfish 
workers carry forward undesignedly the common cause. 

* These great tools are but growths, elongations of the intellect, — helps, 
■which in its fulness it contrives for itself All machines are but man-made 
fingers, legs, eyes, ears. Thence, the mind that has not swelled to the want 
of them, cannot use them. What are types or the telescope in the hand$ 
of the savage '; And thence, the degree of activity wherewith those toola 
are plied, marks the rank of nations in the scale of humanity. Pass frona 
the heart of Russia to the heart of England, from the sterile animalism of 
Africa to the affluent humanity of America. In Africa, types and steam are 
unknown ; in Russia they are still in embryo ; iu England and America, to 
arrest them for a day, were to arrest and confuse the great currents of life. 



THE MIND OF MAN. 26 

Life is movement. On the earth man is the centre of life. 
For invigorating, multiplying, beautifying life, all Nature is at 
his service. At first he uses partially, grossly, passively, only 
her palpable simple qualities. Compare the tools, and the work 
done with them, of the savage, with the tools and work of the 
civilized. 

The subtler his agents, the larger is man's gain of power. 
Who can compute what he has gained by steam ? Enter a 
crowded capital by night, to learn what a centupled flood of light 
comes from an imponderable substance. What are battering- 
rams to gunpowder, whose terrible force is in the sudden libera- 
tion of a gas. Subtler than either, electricity, — now our post- 
man, — has a speed which cannot be calculated. Subtlest of all, 
master of them all, clutching their combined force in its grasp, 
out-shining the sun, out-running the electric flash, in resources 
infinite, in power immeasurable, is the mind of man ! the centre, 
summit and consum.mation of earthly being, the quintessence of 
things, the jewel of the world, the citadel of humanity, the final 
superlative in Nature, — the boundless receptacle, the exhaustless 
source, whither and whence, backward and forward, flow the 
streams of the multiplex movement which we call the world, — • 
the mystic womb of thought, in whose vast depths lie the Past, the 
Present, the Future, — the mighty generator, who on earth gen- 
erates all the deeds of men, and with man-like shapes peoples the 
infinite beyond, — the dauntless seeker, who on the dread confines 
of being confronts the Creative Spirit of the Universe, and wres- 
tles with him for his secrets. 

This divine fire, who dare wish to quench or control it ? 
The sacrilegious, who would handle this sublime essence as they 
do gas and steam, who are they ? They are Princes and Priests. 

In the beginning, natural superiorities are readily acknowl- 
edged. By their sympathies not less than by their weaknesses, 
men yield to guidance. So long as it is guidance and not direc- 

2 



26 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPii. 

tion, so long as real superiority is the condition of leadership, tha 
relation between guides and guided is healthy. But in the im- 
perfect social organizations, for the elastic play of natural ten- 
dencies, is soon substituted the rigid pressure of artificial arrange- 
ments. Men invent laws, instead of discovering them. Then 
humanity is turned awry. Then in place of impartiality and 
freedom and natural growth, there is — in proportion to the rigidity 
of the conventional ordinances — one-sidedness, compression, tyran- 
ny. The human-arbitrary takes place of the divine-free. Wil- 
lingly or not, men have abdicated their native sovereignty ; there 
is enforced submission ; they are governed, ruled, commanded. 
Their strength has passed away from them, to be centered in a 
caste, a class, a family. Above them, in permanent possession, 
absorbing their wills, controlling their thoughts, ordering their 
acts, are irresponsible masters, greedy monopolists of power. 
Scorning men, defying God, jealous, self-seeking, unsympathiz- 
ing, the first objects of the suspicion, envy, wrath, of these self- 
constituted, unhallowed leaders, are the men commissioned by 
Nature to be the guides of humanity. The mission of these is to 
enlighten, to exalt ; the aim of the former is to domineer over, to 
possess men. .The inspired benefactors, the parents of new 
thoughts, the revealers and champions of great truths — they who 
are endowed with genius to vivify and enlarge the minds of their 
fellows, when they have not ended a life of persecution by the 
cross or the fagot, have mostly lived unacknowledged to die 
un regretted. 

Two hundred years ago, a tribunal of Theologians sitting in 
Rome, pronounced the assertion, that the earth moves, to be not 
only heretical in religion, but absurd in philosophy ; and to the 
assertor applied the rack to extort a retraction of this truth, which 
his genius had revealed in its high communings with God. More 
presumptuous, more blasphemous than the angry denial of the 
movement of the earth, is the denial of the movement of the hu- 






SACERDOTAL DESPOTISM. 2t 

man mind. The same tribunal still sits in Rome, and to its offi- 
cials in all quarters of the globe proclaims, that in matters the 
most vital, — his duty to God, his duty to his fellows, — ^judgment 
shall not unfold itself in the brain of man, but be passively ac- 
cepted from this tribunal, the privileged fabricator of religious and 
moral laws. This inhuman, this godless proclamation, it en- 
deavors to enact by means adapted to the condition of each land ; 
by the gaol and gibbet in priest-rotten Italy, — by gilded so- 
phistries, by feigned pliancy, by Judas-kisses in Pi'otestant 
America. 

Of all despotism, the sacerdotal is the most desolating, both its 
end and means being the direct subjection of the mind. Irre- 
sponsible priests are worse enemies of mankind than princes. 
Haiing each other as rival usurpers, with an unchristian hate, 
they have from necessity mostly leagued together to bemaster the 
intellect and soul ; believing, that he who could possess himself 
of the minds of men, would own the treasure of treasures. But 
the selfish are ever short-sighted. It is seldom given to thieves to 
enjoy their thefts. When priests have robbed their brother of 
that which makes him poor indeed, the wealth* that he has lost 
enricheth not the robber ; for, by a deep law of Nature, which 
decrees the inviolability of the human soul, the moment the mind 
is invaded it ceases to be a treasure. The contiguous breath of 
the possessor bedims the splendor of the jewel. Freedom gives 
the only light by which it sparkles. In subjection, the mind 
pines and perishes. On itself must it be poised, out of itself draw 
its life, within itself must be its supreme tribunal. Else it has no 
spring for elevation, no self-renewing vitality, no self-rectifying 
force. It languishes, it sickens, it dwindles. But not alone. 
They who on the holy of holies lay impious hands, the Cains who 
kill their brothers' souls, they dwindle with it ; they become little 
with the littleness they have caused. Look at Spain, at Portugal, 
at Italy, the People and their Priests. What an intellectual wil- 



28 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

derness! What children are the People, what wet and dry 
nurses their pastors ! 

Rome being the centre of Catholicism, in the upper ranks of 
the Hierarchy there, an intellectual activity is maintained by the 
conflict thence directed against Protestantism in the freer coun- 
tries of Christendom. No correspondent moral activity is visible. 
On the contrary, being predominant, absolute, irresponsible, liv- 
ing in isolated grandeur high above the people, the upper clergy 
in Rome is further than almost any class of men in the world out 
of the circle of the conditions needed for the growth and nourish- 
ment of Christian morality, of self-sacrifice and brotherly love. 
Hence the Prelates in Rome have ever been noted for rapacity, 
arrogance, ambition, sensuality ; alternating these indulgences, 
on occasion, as at the present moment, with vindictiveness and 
cruelty. 

Follow the Catholic priests to England, or, better still, to the 
United States. Here, without losing the vices inherent in such a 
theocracy, they become morally as well as intellectually invigo- 
rated in the light kindled by Protestantism, to the which they are 
so unwillingly exposed. They do their best to put out this hated 
light, feeling that they can never be at home in it, that in the end 
it must be fatal to them. In Protestant countries priests of Rome 
always cut somewhat the figure of owls by day. 

What intellectual force it has, Catholicism owes to Protestant- 
ism. By Protestantism I do not here mean merely Calvinism, or 
Anglicanism, or Lutheranism, or any other sectarian ism, but the 
imperishable spirit of mental freedom which has in all ages burst 
up through the crust of ecclesiastical usurpation — the perennial 
protest of the soul against spiritual authority — the continuous as- 
sertion of the rights of conscience. This spirit is the moi'al life 
of humanity. The Romish Church, striving ever to crush it, has 
found in this strife a permanent stimulant to intellectual exertion. 
In the midst of Protestant churches themselves, this same spirit, 



JESUITISM. 29 

struggling ever for absolute liberty, rises up from a deeper deep, 
protesting against priestly dominion, however tempered. Its sub- 
limest manifestation was against Catholicism through the great 
Luther, under whose mighty blows the Papacy staggered. In 
the throes of its despair it gave birth to Jesuitism, which is the 
offspring of the collision between light and darkness, and which 
gives evidence in its nature of its monstrous parentage, exhibiting 
the cold glitter which intellectual light makes on a ground of 
moral gloom. Jesuitism is henceforth the indispensable armor of 
Popery. 

With the advancement of culture the clerical is overtopped by 
the literary and scientific classes. A vivifying book rarely comes 
now-a-days from the clergy, Protestant or Catholic. Creeds are 
not the nurseries of originality. Original minds on their side are 
prone to interrogate creeds with very little reverence ; and a heart 
of deep sympathies solves all theological questions in the flame of 
its love and justice. 

On the other hand, priests, while arrogating to themselves a 
spiritual superiority, reflect the moral condition of the population 
around them. Like man, like master. Thus the priest of Mex- 
ico fights cocks, and the Cardinal in Rome, and the Anglican 
Bishop in London play whist. The successors of St. John and 
St. Peter fighting cocks and playing whist, while Christendom is 
agasp for want of a vivifying faith ! In all things how effects and 
causes interplay one upon the other. 

Some conclusions : 

That a man should never give permanent or irresponsible power 
over himself to any other man. 

That as men are wisely wary of trusting their purses or their 
persons to others' keeping, much more should they refuse to trust 
their souls. 

That to do so, is to abdicate one's manhood. 

That Nature designs the mind to be developed, not moulded. 



80 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

That irresponsible rulers, priestly or princely, must in the 
main be knaves ; for irresponsibility indurates the conscience. 

That force is the law of evil, that is, no law, but like all evil, a 
breach of law. 

Let us return for a moment to Switzerland, whence we have 
been floated away on this current of thoughts, which are, how- 
ever, pertinent to her condition ; for, republic as she is these five 
hundred years, she too has had her princes and her priests. 



CHAPTER VI. 

BWIBS EEPUBLIO— BADEN-BADEN THE NUN PEACE-CONGRESS IN FEANKFOUT. 

For the most part in Switzerland, political power was from the 
first absorbed and retained by a few families. In the greater 
number of Cantons a majority of the inhabitants had no voice in 
public affairs. Those in which the whole people participated did 
not contain one tenth of the entire population. Switzerland, 
strange as this may sound, has learned democracy from France. 
Until the French revolutions, especially those of -30 and -48, 
what between the predominance of aristocratic families or of Ro- 
man priests, Switzerland was as little progressive as any of her 
neighbors. She was a Republic with aristocratic institutions — a 
Republic of the bastard Venetian species. But the democratic 
element was there and recognized, only not developed. Thence, 
the popular impulse, communicated by France to Europe, if not 
caught up with more alacrity by the Swiss than by the Germans, 
found in them a mould fitted to give it at once practical shape. 
In the coming conflict between Democracy and Despotism, Swit- 
zerland is destined probably to play a part worthy of her origin. 

After having been a short time in Switzerland, to be out of it 
is like resting after work. For the mind that has been weeks on 
the stretch, heaved up into mountains and furrowed with gorges, 
the subsiding back to its normal level is a repose. Joy as it was 
to get into Switzerland, to get out again brought its pleasure. So 



32 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

it ever is with healthy enjoyments ; they end naturally, leaving 
the spirit refreshed for the soberer tenor of its w^ay. 

From Basle steam hurried us in a few hours to Baden-Ba- 
den, whose crowd of motley visitors was waging, as at most " fash- 
ionable watering-places," an hourly battle with ennui. By suc- 
cessive assaults of dressing, driving, dining, dancing, gossipping, 
gambling, strolling, they manage to keep Time under ; so that 
even the professional idler, whose sprightliest companion is his 
cigar, finds that he can beat " the enemy" day after day, without 
the trouble of a thought to help him. Then, a Congress of plot- 
ters against freedom would hardly have assembled more Kings, 
and Queens, and princes, the very presence of whom, in such 
abundance, so magnetized to most of the company the common 
air, that simple breathing was a continuous intoxication, enough 
of itself to make life delicious. It would be unjust not to partic- 
ularize, as the chief attraction of Baden-Baden, its green, varied 
valleys, and the wooded hills that make them. By help of these, 
a few choice friends and books, with the privilege — which need 
not be despised — of cutting at will into the above mentioned arti- 
ficial stores, a summer might be spent in Baden-Baden in a way 
that would make one desire to repeat it. 

From midst the town flights of steps led me, on a Sunday 

morning, up a steep height, about two hundred feet, to the palace 
of the Grand Duke. Begilded and bedamasked rooms, empty of 
paintings or sculpture, were all that there was to see, so I soon 
passed from the palace to the terrace in front of it. 

A landscape looks best on Sunday. With the repose of man 
Nature sympathizes, and in the inward stillness, imparted uncon- 
sciously to every spirit by the general calm, outward beauty is 
more faithfully imaged. 

From the landscape my mind was soon withdrawn, to an object 
beneath me. Glancing over the terrace-railing almost into the 
chimneys of the houses below, my eye fell on a female figure in 



THE NUN. 33 

black, pacing round a small garden enclosed by high walls. 
From the privileged spot where I stood, the walls were no de- 
fence, at least against masculine vision. The garden was that of 
a convent, and the figure walking in it was a nun, upon whose 
privacy I was thus involuntarily intruding. Never once raising 
her eyes from her book, she walked round and round the enclo- 
sure in the Sabbath stillness. But what to her was this weekly 
rest ? She is herself an incessant sabbath, her existence is a con- 
tinuous stillness. She has set herself apart from her fellows; 
she would no more know their work-day doings ; she is a volun- 
tary somnambulist, sleeping while awake ; she walks on the earth 
a flesh-and-blood phantom. What a fountain of life and love is 
there dried up ! To cease to be a woman ! The warm currents 
that gush from a woman's heart, all turned back upon their 
source ! What an agony ! — And yet, could my eyes, that follow 
the quiet nun in her circumscribed walk, see through her prison 
into the street behind it, there they might, perchance at this very 
moment, fall on a sister going freely whither she listeth, and yet, 
enclosed within a circle more circumscribed a thousand fold than 
any that stones can build, — the cii'cle built by public reprobation. 
Not with downcast lids doth she walk, but with a bold stare that 
would out-look the scorn she awaits. No Sabbath stillness is for 
her, — her life is a continuous orgie. No cold phantom is she, — 
she has smothered her soul in its flesh. Not arrested and stag- 
nant are the currents of her woman's heart, — infected at their 
spring, they flow foul and fast. Not apart has she set herself 
fi"om her fellows, — she is thrust out from among them. Her 
mother knows her no more, nor her father, nor her brother, nor 
her sister. In exchange for the joys of daughter, wife, mother, 
woman, she has shame and lust. Great God ! What a tragedy 
she is. To her agony all that the poor nun has suffered is beati- 
tude. — Follow now, in your thought, the two back to their child- 
hood, their sweet chirping innocence. Two dewy buds are they, 

2* 



34 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EFROPE. 

exhaling from their folded hearts a richer perfume with each ma- 
luring month, — two beaming cherubs, that have left their wings 
behind them, eager to bless and to be blest, and with power to 
replume themselves from the joys and bounties of an earthly life. 
In a few short years what a distortion ! The one is a withered, 
fruitless, branchless stem ; the other, an unsexed monster, whose 
touch is poisonous. Can such things be, and men still smile and 
make merry ? To many of its members, society is a Saturn that 
eats his children — a fiend, that scourges men out of their hu- 
manity, and then mocks at their fall. 

A nun, like a suicide, is a reproach to Christianity : a harlot 
is a judgment on civilization. 

— In the last days of August, we found ourselves again in 
Frankfort, at the heels of the Peace-Congress. 

Arms can't free a people ; ideas only can do that. But at cer- 
tain stages of the liberating work of ideas, arms have to clear the 
track for their further march. Otherwise they would be first 
stopt, and then stifled by gross obstructions. Arms may thus be 
the instruments of ideas, — impure instruments, but the best, on 
occasions, that an impure world affords. Threatened with drown- 
ing, would you be nice in the means of extrication ? Freedom 
has always used arms ; without them she would have been 
crushed. If honest men should all turn members of the non- 
resistance society, the rogues would soon have the upper hand. 

What can a Peace-Congress do against wolves ? Put your 
preachings into practice in face of a bear. Without compunction 
or a moment's theoretical cogitation, the meekest zealot of you 
all, would meet Bruin's hug with the thrust of a bowie-knife. 
There may be a time when even a bowie-knife can do good ser- 
vice. But a bear is a beast forever inaccessible to thought, which 
is the parent of freedom and peace. What if you were set upon 
by a foot-pad, who first wounds you with a pistol-shot, and then 
rushes forward to rob you, or to finish you with a poignard ? 



PEACE-CONGRESS. 85 

Could you keep your finger off a trigger, or, if you had none, 
help cursing your stars that you were unarmed. There is but 
one way of dealing with a murderous assailant. " He who slays 
with the sword, he shall perish by the sword." The text clearly 
applies to him, and not to you. Upon him you have fulfilled it, 
and there an end. 

The two millions of soldiers that garrison the continent of 
Europe, are but legalized foot-pads. They hold bayonets to the 
throats of the nations, while kings and popes, and their minions, 
rob their souls and their pockets, and their lives. It is brute 
force, compelling the mind in its loVvest as well as its highest 
needs, crippling it in all its means. Freedom of speaking, of 
printing, of meeting, of going and coming, of buying, of selling, 
of associating, — all are curtailed, hampered, or suppressed. 
Every right of manhood is maimed or crushed. Against such 
violence what defence is there ? Incalculably more effective 
arms than pistols, even against pistols themselves, are thoughts — 
when you can use them. And at this moment, in the face of 
artillery and the hangman, they are use-d with an efficiency that 
startles the gods of gunpowder. 

Were the conflict confined to civilized Europe, it might be 
brought to an end without bloodshed. Vienna and Berlin, and 
even bemitred Rome would soon capitulate to the fiery assaults 
of all-conquering thought. But semi-barbarous Russia, who fears 
freedom and proscribes ideas, puts herself at the head of the brute 
cause, and gives it her million of muskets. Here is a bear that, 
under pretence of love for order, would hug freedom to death. 
And shall Freedom, in this strait, not thrust the sword, not pull 
the trigger ? 

Let the Peace-Congress address itself to the Emperor of Rus- 
sia. He is the chief, nay, the only obstacle to peace in Europe. 
Witsh an unchristian infidelity the Emperor of Russia puts his 
trust in the despotism of muskets. With his brute force he up- 



86 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

holds the regal governments of the Continent, the which, being 
dead, can only be upheld by bi'ute force. At Paris and Rome, 
as well as at Vienna and Berlin, Russian policy rules. But for 
her, Freedom, the nursery of peace, would be already founded 
on the ruins of Austrian despotism, and her cause be triumphant 
in Germany. The logical place for the next Peace-Congress is 
Warsaw. 

The Despots have divined, that peace can only be the fruit of 
freedom. Thence they regard the Peace-Congress as a Freedom- 
Congress. It is a Freedom-Congress. But can it devise how, in 
the actual array of hostilities, freedom can triunjph without a 
temporary alliance with gunpowder ? Most of its members are, I 
suspect, of one mind with three American delegates whom I had 
the pleasure of meeting in Switzerland on their way to Frankfort, 
whose tongues warmed at the talk of a universal armed uprising 
of the Peoples against the tyrants that degrade and despoil them. 



J 



CHAPTER VII. 

BTAGE-COACH AND CAR CONSERVATISM GERMAN BURGHER AND POSTILION- 
PRIMARY EDUCATION IN GERMANY. 

Among agreeable contrasts cannot be classed that between a 
steam-driven car and a German stage-coach. On the railroad 
from Frankfort to Cassel, there was, in 1850, between Friedberg 
and Giessen, a chasm which we were three hours in getting over 
by coach. What a good thing is a McAdam road ! It deserves 
the point of admiration. Wherewith then shall we point the sen- 
tence that tells of the railroad ? To pass from the one to the 
other is like poverty after affluence, like a good whistler after 
Jenny Lind, like beer after Burgundy. How we grapple to us 
what we once get possession of. Who would give up the railroad 
or the newspaper ? Ask the freshman to go back to the school- 
room. A progress takes hold of us like the growing fibre of our 
frame : it enfolds our life. To go back, is against nature. Our 
lot is, to go forward. 

Let Conservatives bethink them. Our moral life is as slug- 
gish as the " Royal Mail." Only twenty years ago the mail' 
ten miles an hour was very fast. 'Twas the most that turnpike 
and coach could do. Who then talked of twenty miles the hour, 
not to speak of fifty, was a dangerous innovator or an impractical 
Utopian. The ten miles is the most can be got out of the old 
Church and the old State. We want a new Church, as different 
from the old one as iron and steam are from horse-flesh and gran- 



88 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

ite. Who dare say " Halt," to the moral man ? Why should I 
doubt that we may have 'a belief so inspiring, that our social con- 
dition shall, like locomotive speed, rise from ten to fifty. Are we 
only mechanical ? Can we reform roads and not institutions ? 
Are no more discoveries to be made in the upper sphere ? Have 
we read to the end of the book of life, that we turn back the 
leaves to the first chapters again ? In the presence of miraculous 
man, and the mighty Providence above him, who dare define his 
possibilities ? Ye think yourselves believers, and ye believe only 
in the dead and the dying. The Barbarian believes naught but 
tradition and what he sees. Ye bandage your vision with his 
limitations : ye forego the right of reason, which bids ye look be- 
fore as well as after. Talk to the Barbarian of the railroad and 
the electric telegraph ; he will laugh at you, if he does not frown. 
Talk we to you of methods whereby evil shall be exorcised and 
good made to prevail like sunshine, of harmonies that shall con- 
vert human labor into a life-long joy, of conditions that shall ful- 
fil your daily prayer, " thy kingdom come, thy will be done on 
earth as it is in heaven," — ye laugh or frown. Ye civilized bar- 
barians, ye believing skeptics, upon ye be this triple malediction ; 
ye shall sail without the compass, travel without steam, and read 
never a printed page. 

— By my side on the top of the coach, was an average sample 
of a German Burgher, — stout and kindly, intelligent and acces- 
sible. It did me good to hear him curse all kings, particularly 
his own of Prussia. Not that as a democrat I need to be forti- 
fied in my political creed by this verbal pulling down of monar- 
chies ; or, that as a man I take delight in hearing a fellow-man, 
even a king, abused. It was as evidence, — such as I have had 
much of in the past i^ew weeks, — of the emancipation of German 
feeling from the thraldom of regal prestige, that I listened with 
pleasure to my neighbor's king-cursing fluency. No " divinity 
doth hedge a king" any more in Germany. In the Frankfo »; 



PROLETARIANS. 89 

Assembly, two years ago, an orator said bitingly of his country- 
men, " A German without a prince, is like a dog without a mas- 
ter." He could not and would not have said it, if it had not 
already begun to cease to be true. In these two years the Ger- 
mans have not made progress simply, they have made a leap. 
They have, in opinions and convictions, leapt clean out of prince- 
dom. One is astonished to hear of and to witness the so rapid 
and general conversion to democracy. Principles of political 
liberty and resolves to put them into act, are widely spread and 
deeply rooted. Among this thoughtful, reading people, the ground 
was well prepared, and the princes by their perfidy are doing 
almost better for the growing crop, than could have done those 
who are to reap. There will be a plentiful harvest ; if it be 
gathered in blood, the blood be on the heads of the traitors who, 
having been again trusted, would again rule with the old tyran- 
nies. In two years what a revulsion ! After the popular victory 
in 1848, how forgiving, hopeful, magnanimous, trustful, was the 
whole German race : in 1850, how full of wrath, bitterness, 
menace. There will be no forgiveness of the past the next time. 
In the postilion, who from the back of the near wheel-horse 
conducted our cumbrous vehicle, I had a sample of a German 
proletarian. Proletarian means a producer of men. The day- 
laborers of Europe are esteemed, first as workers, who can be 
bought at about twenty-five cents a day, to do all agricultural and 
manufacturing work ; and secondly, as breeders, whose function 
is to keep full the supply of workers. Hence this appellation, 
which denotes that the masses here are valued as muscle-endowed 
animals, not as soul-endowed men. Our postilion had been 
wentv-six years on the road, passing over these same few leagues 
almost daily ; and yet, of the small neighboring towns or villages, 
so near that the spires and highest buildings were visible, he 
knew the name of scarcely one. His countryman by my side, 
poured upon him from our elevation, volleys of bitter ridicule. 



40 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

The Dostilion was annoyed, not at being found ignorant, but that 
he was expected to know such things. In his naivete there was 
wisdom, as there so often is. His feeling was an unconscious 
iprotestation, that* personally he was blameless for his ignorance. 
They are the blamable, who, uridex pretext of governing, convert 
a man into a carriage-conducting machine. 

Much praise has been bestowed on the schools, and on the uni- 
versality of primary instruction in Germany. For the compara- 
tive excellence of methods and the breadth of their applicatioJi, 
let the praise stand. Good schooling is never a bad thing. 
Nevertheless, when for twelve hours out of the twenty-four, men 
are turned into beasts of burden, and can then barely earn the 
coarsest food and raiment, how much does sdiooling profit them ? 
Many of the German peasants are found in mature life, to have 
forgotten how to read and write. What time or occasion have 
they to use these high instruments ? To men so belabored, so 
disfranchised, schooling is almost a mockery. This postilion can 
read and write. Had he been never taught a letter, but been al- 
lowed a voice in naming the mayor of his village, and the parson 
of his church, I warrant he would have known the names of 
every hamlet we passed ; and this in itself, barren knowledge, 
would have been the attendant and sign of a productive knowl- 
edge of men and things, denoting that his understanding had been 
cultivated by animating contacts, &,nd his heart enlarged by sym- 
pathies beyond the petty routine of the postilion's duties. Let 
him vote for his burgomaster, his pastor, and his tax-imposer, and 
no fear but he will take care that his children be provided with 
the humanizing media of intercourse, reading, writing, and arith- 
metic ; and no fear either that they will forget them from want 
of practice. The mere introduction of the penny-post in England, 
led tens of thousands of poor people to learn to read and write, 
just to avail themselves of the facility thus opened of comm/mi- 
cating with their distant relatives. Open to the laborer the fa- 



SCHOOLS. ^ 41 

cility and necessity of communicating with his neighbors and 
fellow-men, — his political relatives, — on their common interests 
and rights ; give him as man the practical education acquired by 
a manly share in public affairs, and he will be sure to provide, — 
whether by public or private means, — for the school-instruction 
of the boy. But this elevation of the proletarian is the reverse of 
what European governments desire. , 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MAEBOKG MONUMENT RAILROAD TO CASSEL CASSEL TO DRESDEN. 

To the traveller on this route, who travels to see, I recommend 
half a day at Marburg. A prettier site for a small inland town, 
he will seldom meet with. It stands on the sides of a hill that 
projects like a sudden promontory into the valley of the Lahn, 
and whose summit is crowned with the old castle of the Land- 
graves of Hesse, round which the town gradually built itself in 
the middle ages. At the outer base of the promontory is the 
church, pure and simple Gothic, six hundred years old, with 
double towers, remarkable for its symmetry. The station is a 
quarter of a mile distant from the town. As you sweep up to it 
on the curve of the railroad, the castle on the top of the hill, the 
old town on its sides, the graceful church at its foot, with a valley 
running back from its northern slope, make a picture so capti- 
vating, that you rejoice to learn that this is Marburg, where you 
are to stop. 

On our way up to the castle, we passed the houses wherein 
had lodged Luther and Zwingli, when they met here to discuss 
transubstantialion. They of course parted without agreeing. 
To settle a theological question is as easy as to pin a ghost to the 
wall : they are both so purely within the province of the imagi- 
nation. In the castle is a chapel, in which Luther preached. I 
mounted into the plain oaken pulpit, whence the thunderer had 
launched his church-rending 'ightnings. 



INNKEEPER AT MARBURG. 43 

The town, j)artly in shadow, clustered round the protecting 
castle, the twin, tapering spires, and the soft valley of the Lahn, 
seen up and down, combine to give a view from the terrace 
which, in the afternoon especially, is enchanting. As we gazed, 
a train from Cassel came down the valley. After rushing noisily 
past in front of us, it shot away in silence to the south, under its 
white canopy of mist, like a cloud before a hurricane. 

To " take mine ease in mine inn," the inn must be good. 

The inn is the traveller's home, and he can't feel at home in it 
unless it be cleanly and kindly. Mine host and hostess are the 
wayfarer's father and mother. When he alights they receive 
him with welcome, good cheer, and a clean bed. These he will 
find at the " Golden Knight" (zum Goldnen Ritter), in Marburg. 
Mine host was a good specimen of the German Boniface of a 
small town — portly, thriving, communicative, familiar but re- 
spectful, a good judge of meat and drink, and sharing fairly with 
his guests the fruits of his judgment. Twice a year he goes to 
the Rhine to replenish his cellar. While there he keeps his pal- 
ate susceptible by abstinence, and surrenders himself to the gus- 
tative joy which the Rhine offers to the discriminating connois- 
seur, not until after he has made his purchases. He warmed 
towards me as he perceived that I drank in with relish his dis- 
course about the localities where Liehfrauenmilch, Oppenh€i?ner, 
Niersieiner ripen. As compliment to his publican qualities, and 
as index of his thrift, he owns a garden on the skirt of the town. 
His landlordship were incomplete without these few acres within 
an easy walk of his door, where he rears fruit and esculents, 
and has a daily pastime for his latter years. I am bound to men- 
tion, for the truthfulness of my sketch, that at parting the next 
afternoon, he played me a very unfatherly trick, having — after 
we had paid his bill and set out on foot to the station — manifested 
a hard-hearted indifference whether our luggage arrived in time 
or not. Had I met him within the ten minutes of excruciating 



44 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

suspense caused by his coldness, I should have had difficulty in 
refraining from paying his unparental insensibility with very un- 
filial, phrases. 

After exploring the pretty valley that runs back and brings a 
tributary brook of most limpid water to the Lahn, we ascended a 
hill across it directly opposite to the town, wishing to get a view 
from this point, and attracted too by a monument on the summit 
of the hill. The view is a reward for the ascent to any one who 
does not find in the walk itself its own reward ; and the monu- 
ment I would not have missed seeing had the road to it been rug- 
ged and steep. 

I defy all the millions of guessers in the United. States to divine 
why this monument was erected. No American imagination 
could in such a search come near enough to have even " warm" 
cried to it, as in the game of Hunt the Slipper. After looking 
round at the panoramic landscape, I turned towards the monu- 
ment, an obelisk twelve or fourteen feet high, built of freestone. 
When I had read the inscription, I read it over again. Yes, there 
could be no mis-reading ; the woi'ds were plain, well-cut Ger- 
man. I am counting perhaps much too largel)' upon my charac- 
ter for veracity, in hoping that it will be able to withstand the 
shock of the reader's incredulity, when I tell him that their pur- 
port was as follows. A princess of Hesse-Cassel had one fine day 
walked up to this spot, and enjoyed the views thence. To com- 
memorate this fact this monument of stone was built by some 
grateful inhabitants of Marburg. And these good Germans would 
at times take airs over us on account of African slavery ! I must 
in justice add that it is a monument of the past, having been raised 
about thirty years ago. 

At every station of the road to Cassel on Sunday after- 
noon, crowds of peasants were assembled to see the steam- wonder. 
At the snorting monster, fire-souled, and wheel-pawed, they stared 
as the aboriginal Americans did at the vessels of Columbus. But 



f 



MOMENTUM OF HUMANITY. 45 

not like them with wild wonderment and a dim presentient fear. 
The white civilizee is within reach of the beneficence of machin- 
ery ; for the yellow savage it is an unsparing destroyer, which 
mows him down the faster in proportion as itself is the stronger. 
A.t the flying " locomotive," whose wings, laden with a hundred 
men, outfly the eagle, the sun-browned sons and daughters of 
'abor gazed with an intelligent admiration, as half conscious that 
t is a harbinger of better days. — For the emancipation of man all 
oovvers must co-work ; the intellect with its logic and its inven- 
ions, the soul with its expansive wants, nature with the revela- 
,ions which she so gladly makes to penetrative genius. Industry 
must join hands with Christianity, Science, with Sentiment, Intel- 
ligence with Faith. The momentum of humanity must have 
been already incalculably accelerated by the unfolding of its ca- 
pacities, ere it can swing itself into a wider orbit. This momen- 
tum it now has ; and as the train, burthened with its scores of 
tons, swept with fabulous speed past turretted burgs and stately 
castles in ruin, it was a symbol of the present eager movement 
among the foremost nations of Christendom, striding forward with 
new energy and new hope, leaving behind the old walls and tow- 
ers of defence, and careering into a sphere of untrammelled free- 
dom and unvexed enjoyment. 

At Cassel, the population was all out of doors, in the great 

streets and in the public walks, as is the continental custom of a 
Sunday afternoon, the peasantry from the neighborhood flocking 
in to diversify and thicken the crowd. Puppets, mountebanks, 
and monkeys were entertaining full-grown men and women. The 
pleasure of the lower classes in these childish spectacles, is re- 
flected in the upper, who delight to see them enjoy such coarse 
emptinesses, it being a sign that they are themselves empty and 
childish, and therefore governable. To be easily governed is, in 
[]vi eyes .of governors, the highest virtue of a people. I am happy 
to bear witness that this virtue is here frrowing weaker and 



46 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPK 

weaker. A manly consciousness is awakened in the laborious 
masses. Thence the multiplication of soldiers, who are the con- 
stables of tyrants. On these musket-shouldering drones, the 
people now scowl with feelings anything but childlike. 

Between Cassel and Dresden lie five or six degrees of longi- 
tude, and the territories of half a dozen sovereign states. This 
space, dotted with towns of historic name, has on the map a for- 
midable look, Cassel lying in the west, and Dresden in the east 
of Germany. But the wishing-cap of Gothic mythology finds its 
realization in a railroad ticket. Wish yourself three hundred 
miles off^ and by having in your pocket a printed slip of paper, 
your wish is in a twinkling fulfilled, even in Germany, where 
the fiery " Locomotive" has to curb his impatience, and adapt 
his flight somewhat to the proverbial Teutonic slowness. 



1 



CHAPTER IX. 



A DAY IN DRESDEN. 



Dresden, the capital of Saxony, contains 90,000 inhabitants; 
its collections of works of art have gained for it the title of " the 
German Florence;" its two unequal parts are united by a broad 
substantial stone bridge over the Elbe, " built with money raised 
by the sale of dispensations from the Pope for eating butter and 
eggs during Lent," &c. &c. The &cs. covering twenty closely 
printed pages, the reader, curious in such details, will find in 
" Murray's Hand-Book for Northern Germany." Here he will 
have only the sketch of a day in Dresden, from notes, taken down 
on the spot, of such " Scenes and Thoughts" as presented them- 
selves successively to the writer, from early morning till bed- 
time, on Monday, the 9th of September, 1850. 

Through a window of No. 10, a spacious chamber on the 
second floor of the Hotel, Sladt Rom, I look, while dressing, into 
the square of the Neu-Markt, yet in shadow, for it is half-past six 
o'clock. Carts, and women bearing on their backs heavily 
laden baskets, are coming slowly in from the country. Opposite, 
across the square, is the great Picture-Gallery ; at the I'ight, the 
" Church of our Lady," with its stone dome, large and lofty, 
illuminated by the rising sun. 

-^^ Before seven, out in the cool morning. Fires are already 

lighted, in people's mouths. We have just past a cart drawn by 
a woman and dog, pulling sociably in harness together, and at 



48 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

every few steps, we come upon women stooping as they walk, 
under burthens on their backs. Striking into a street raked by 
the sun, — for the air is chilly, — we soon issue upon the Wills- 
druffer Place, set off by a fountain in form of an elaborate, 
feathery, Gothic pinnacle ; and thence onward to the Zioinger, an 
extensive showy edifice, where are the Historical and other Mu- 
seums, partly destroyed during the late civil conflicts. The sides 
of the building enclose a square, laid out in walks and shrubbery. 
Before entering, let us read the printed notice at the gate-way : — 
" These grounds are recommended to the protection of the pub- 
lic." A greeting like this, wins at a stroke the affection of the 
stranger. Such gentle fraternal words, tell of refinement and 
mutual trust. They made sacred to us every blade and leaf 
within the enclosure. We walked back to the inn with the sen- 
sation that one has, after receiving welcome unexpected news. 

The carts in the New Market-place have emptied their loads, 
which are now piled up breast high on one side of the square, 
pile next to pile of huge loaves of rye bread, baked in the neigh- 
boring villajTes. 

Waiting for breakfast in the public room of the Stadt Rom, 
from a seat by the corner window, I have a level view of the 
whole square, and a close one of the current of passers in and 
out of it, through a street that runs by one side of the hotel. 
People have not a brisk auroral air ; they look relaxed instead of 
braced. They don't go at the day vigorously. This early aspect 
of awakened Dresden, is of a town that takes its leisure. After 1 
breakfast, I sauntered across to the sunny corner of the square, I 
towards the church, where the market-women with their baskets! 
of vegetables are chatting and chaffering. Their heads are with- 
out covering. If upon the living brain the sun could breed 
tliought, as upon the dead he breeds maggots, what vaulted brows 
would crown the faces of European peasants, what Moscs-li!;e| 
coruscations would shoot from their parturient foreheads. But' 

I 



THE GREEN VAULT. 49 

then they would cease to be peasants, to be the drudge-horses and 
patient oxen that tliey are. The sun breeds only brownness and 
dryness, which embellish not the feminine physiognomy. The 
market-women, however, look ruddy and cheerful, and show 
well, as country people always do, by the side of the townfolk. 

At nine, by appointment, with other sight-seers, to the 

Green Vault {das Grune Gewoihe), — a regal curiosity-shop, 
stocked with Mosaics, jewels, trinkets, miniature-carvings in wood, 
ivory, and precious metals, and other costly rarities. Here and 
there is a bit having the unworn stamp of beauty ; but the most 
of them are not works of Art ; that is, works embodying thought, 
sentiment, or vivid corporeal reality in beautiful forms. They 
are skilful handiwork, with little head or heart- work ; the toil- 
some shapings of uninspired fancy ; the lifeless leavings of Art, 
elaborate nothings ; fruits of the patronizings of tasteless Princes. 
The most precious jewels were absent, having been removed for 
safe-keeping to the Fortress of Konigstein. They showed us one 
unique natural product, — a crystal globe twenty-two inches in 
circumference, a solid transparence, a flawless mineral purity, 
purged by subtei'ranean fires. 

The Historical Museum is an abstract, written in daggers and 
breastplates, of the history of war during the latter half of what 
are called the middle ages. These coats of mail are contemplated 
with a certain favor if one will regard them as life-preservers 
during the stormy period of chivalry. After all, these old-time 
brawlers and spoilers took devilish good care of their skins. 
Just before quitting the Museum we came unexpectedly upon 
arms of a totally different and immensely more effective kind, the 
pen of Goethe and the modelling-stick of Thorwaldsen. These 
modest, tiny weapons, what conquests have they not made ! 
They lay in their little case a mordant irony on the performances 
of the Duke Georges and Prince Henrys, whose effigies on horse- 
back, armed cap-a-pie, we had just seen, and whose exploits, only 



63 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

lieard of througli the mouth of the droning cicerone, we had al- 
ready forgotten. It is a humane surprise prepared for the visitor, 
thus to quicken his spirit with these modern holy relics, after it 
has been wearied with such a flat reiteration of profane antiquities. 

We have time before dinner to look upon some of the 

splendors in the Collection of Pictures, one of the richest in Eu- 
rope. Passing with hasty glances through the broad galleries, 
iiung by the procreant hand of genius, we soon found ourselves 
at their centre, before the masterpiece of masterpieces, the Ma- 
donna di S/o. S«.s/o of Raphael. When, after gazing at it often, 
you happen to be in the congenial receptive mood, which a work 
of art demands, in order to be appreciated, the wonderful perfec- 
tions of this picture reveal themselves. Those two heads, the 
Mother and Child ! In the Madonna is the plenitude of womanly 
life and beauty ; grace united with power, strength with sweet- 
ness. What a grand contour of head, yet soft and feminine j 
calm, earnest, with a deep look of unspeakable beatitude. The 
whole and the individual 'features, regular as Greeks could have 
made them, and yet without coldness or limitation, but warm as 
happiest maternity and of infinite suggestiveness. — The Child has 
a wise, almost wizard look. But for the earnestness and mystic 
depth in the eyes, one might think it the head of an urchin who 
would prove hard to manage, — and in truth the man Jesus was 
unmanageable, a protestor and reformer, a rebel against tfie 
priestcraft of his time. The big eyes look like loop-holes through 
which the Past is peering thoughtfully and sadly into the Future. 
The hair is wild and unkempt. The head and face are not regu- 
lar, but running over with beauty ; infantile and beyond child- 
hood ; shining with an inward light, that ennobles the features 
with the glow of human intellect and sympathy. With the in- 
stinct of genius, Raphael has made the head large, but the size 
is absorbed by the light of the expression. — The two up-gazing 
Cherubs at the base, — the types of love and joy, the focusscs of 



RUBENS. 51 

infinite rapture, marvellous little winded heads, — are in power 
and beauty entirely subordinated to the unwinged Jesus. — Tliis 
is a picture that Fame has never caught up with. 

Ere we quit the Gallery let us. pause for a moment before 
another of its chief treasures, — Neptune stilling the Tempest, by 
Rubens. At the command of Neptune, standing in a shell borne 
on the waves by sea-horses with heads and necks above water, and 
followed by sea-nymphs, the angry winds with black wings are 
reluctantly retiring. What breadth and power of conception, ex- 
pression and coloring. One is nerved by looking at this picture. 
Those three prancing heads are a great creation. Rubens has 
here brought to view the original types of the horse species, the 
progenitors of the whole equine race, such fire is there and inex- 
haustible strength, such a nervous dilation in those heads, darting 
lightnings from eye and nostril. ^ 

At one, — a wholesome hour, — we sat down with a score of 

fellow-diners to the public dinner in the hotel. The dishes, served 
successively, were soup, fish, mutton-chops with I'ed cabbage, 
roast veal, rice pudding — a modest repast which cost forty cents 
in money and one hour and a quarter in time. 

The human capacity of adaptation is nowhere more forci- 
bly exhibited than in the acquired callousness to the suffering 
which, in Europe especially, assaults the compassion at every 
turn, and which, but for this pliancy to circumstances, would keep 
the spirits forever low and banish smiles from the countenance of 
man. But there are spectacles to which no use of custom can so 
harden us but that the heart will always sadden in their presence. 
In going up to our chamber after dinner we had one of these, — a 
woman bearing on her back such a load of wood, that as she 
slowly set foot before foot in the ascent, so bent was she under the 
weight that her face and hands almost touched the step above, her 
burthen thus converting her corporeally, as it tends to do spir- 
itually, into a down-looking quadruped. One hurries by such 



62 SCE:NES and THOITOHTS IN EUROPE. 

sights, that the pang they give may be quickly quenched in the 
sea of busy movement about us ; but against them, and even 
against those to which we are outwardly hardened, men enter 
more and more frequently and more and more deeply an inward 
protest as they pass. A fact full of hope is the accumulating 
protestation against cruelty and wrong. This ceaseless heart-cry 
is a prophecy. Feeling precedes conviction, conviction precedes 
action. The one predicts the other. A present ideal of healthy 
minds is the promise of a future reality. They whose convic- 
tions outrun their practice, whose aspirations are purer than their 
deeds, who know the littlenesses of our dislocated existence for 
what they are, let them cherish uplifting thoughts ; these are not 
barren dreams, they are the roots of a more generous life. 

"Who is this that greets us at the landing with an humble smile 
from her arch face ? Her ^ce is more than arch, it is pretty 
besides, and would be more than pretty, were the soul that lights 
it itself fully lighted. Her brown hair is carried back in that 
easiest simple manner called Grecian. Her head turns grace- 
fully on a fair round neck ; and her shoulders, bust, waist, and 
whole figure are in harmony with her head. Her arm, bare and 
white, would fix the eye of Greenough or of Powers in admira- 
tion, while on his organ of form he took its impress for ideal uses. 
Were you to meet her in a cottage, you would think the cottage 
blest by her sweetness, — in a drawing-room of jewelled beauties, 
she would seem to be born for this elegant rivalry, — in a Palace, 
you might forget the Princess in the woman. Poor Saxon Girl, 
whose mien doth beget for thee such divers perfections upon the 
imagination of a passing stranger, lower than the most modest of 
these conditions is thy lot. Not for thee is even the cottage, with 
the breadth of earth and sky to compensate for its cabined uncul- 
tured existence. Perhaps from its rustic hearth thou wast lured 
by the glare of the city, towards which, — impelled by the d(;cp 
need of human communion, — so many of thy sisters rush to burn 



ASPECT OF DRESDEN. 63 

their ignorant wings in its fire, and to drag ever after their black. 
ened bodies towards an obscure grave. Thee Nature destined 
for a higher sphere. Where the texture is, the sculptor's crea- 
tive hand fashions the Goddess from the raw block : thou hast the 
texture wherewith the plastic power of favoring circumstances 
could have fashioned a household Goddess, an honored accom- 
plished woman. But Fortune, to whose caprices so many are 
committed in this blind-folded world, not joining hands with Na- 
ture, thou wast disorbed, and now dost perform, — and that with 
the cheerfulness of a happy temperament, — the low daily routine 
allotted to the chambermaid of an inn. 

How few people are in their right places. And worse still ; 
were there to be a thorough shuffling, a general change and in- 
terchange of conditions and positions, forward and backward and 
sideways and upward and downward, still we should not get into 
them. The right places are not there. 

Dresden has attractive environs. But the weather is just 

now so unseasonably cold, that an open carriage is rather a pen- 
ance than a pleasure. We shall content ourselves this afternoon 
with an intramural stroll. The town has an air of old-fashioned 
elegance. There is a courtly quiet in the streets. Business and 
traffic are secondary. Many of the people that you meet seem 
to have nothing to do, and those who bear on them some badge of 
business are going about it so leisurely, that most of them, one 
would think, will be overtaken by to-morrow ere they get through. 
The absence of commercial bustle is an agreeable characteristic 
of Dresden. 

At six we walked to the large, commodious theatre lately erected 
near the river. The piece was an opera, a good one. The Wafer. 
carrier. About the time that the curtain of the opera in London 
and Paris rises, that of Dresden falls. At half-past eight we were 
back to the hotel, taking a late tea, while our neighbors, male and 
female, at the public table were busy with the early German sup- 



64 - SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

per of meat, bread, cheese, and salad, of which last, especially, 
the Germans, who have an enviable gift of copious feeding, con- 
sume a huge quantity.. 

It is past nine. Although the opera is over, the Dresden 

day is not yet closed. If the reader will go along with me, I will 
bring him where he will witness what, if he has not been in Ger- 
many, he never has witnessed. In a few minutes we are on the 
Brulil Terrace, which forms a delightful walk within the town, 
along the river and high above it. Here is a cafe : we pay a 
few coppers at the door, and enter a hall capable of holding three 
hundred people : it is now quite full. Af the opposite end, a 
large barrd of good performers is executing excellent music. The 
company, half females, are seated at numerous tables of different 
sizes, supplied with coffee, tea, beer, wine, and some with eata- 
bles. This kind of cheap, good, sociable, conversational concert, 
is characteristic of Germany. One feature caps its Germanism : 
nearly all the men are smoking. One hundred of them simulta- 
neously puffing out smoke generated in their mouths by their 
lungs, which act as bellows on ignited tobacco, in a closed hall 
neither large nor lofty, where, intermingled with the smoke-pro- 
ducers, are one hundred and fifty of the softer (I cannot here say 
sweeter) sex, witnesses of the production, and absorbents of the 
product. The throng of people sit for hours in the compound 
rankness of this unventilated hall, with an insensibility to bad air 
that verified with clenching emphasis, how custom may usurp 
upon nature. If the lungs and olfactory nerves of delicate 
women will not protest, their shawls and silks should, against this 
foul violation of the rights of women. For ourselves, as dutiful 
sight-seers, we bore the pressure upon the arterial circulation of 
this deoxygenated nicotenized atmosphere for twenty minutes, and 
then fled to the terrace. The Germans do not smoke, they are 
smoked. Tobacco has got the upper hand of them. 

By ten we were back to the hotel and No. 16. 



CHAPTER X. 

WEIMAfi— CEMETEET SCHILLER's STUDY GAIL AND GOETHE CRANIUM OF 

SCHILLER — WEIMAr's HIGH INHABITANTS. 

The next day towards noon we were suddenly beset by a de- 
sire to be in Weimar. I like in travelling to give way to an im- 
pulse of this kind. In the wilful breaking up of the set sequence 
of things, there is a remunerative assurance of freedom. You 
start without the ceremony of giving yourself notice. You go 
solely because you want to go. In this there is an enlivening 
breach of routine, a luxury of liberty. You snatch a sunny hol- 
iday from amidst the sombre slaveries of this conventional, whip- 
driven world. After a hurried packing, we provided ourselves 
with the modern wishing-cap, and alighted by early bed-time at 
the " Hereditary Prince," in Weimar, having rushed through 
book-selling Leipzig and book-fed Halle, just as though, instead 
of being populous, notable towns, they had been only relay houses 
by the wayside. 

I walked again in my old paths through the tranquil town 

of Weimar. 'Tis like arresting, and fixing in hard corporeality, 
the airy images of a dream, thus to re-behold after twenty-five 
years, the scenes of careless, laughing youth. The solid recog- 
nized forms are as cold and sad-speaking as the sarcophagi of 
departed friends. One hovers about them with a melancholy self- 
abandonment. I think I know how a ghost feels who revisits the 
haunts of his sublunary sojourn. I peered as I went into faces, 



56 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

with a hope of recognition or reciprocated interest ; but all were 
cold, exclusive, introverted, just like the faces of other streets. 
I passed before Goethe's house. At that door I had once knocked, 
— with timidity, as having no claim to admittance but that which 
his fame gave me, — and within I had met, shining with kindliness, 
that great glittering eye. For what is left of his mortal part 1 
must now seek in the vault. 

And thither I bent my steps. He who after the lapse of a 
quarter of a century revisits tlie resorts of his youth, must betake 
him to the graveyard to find the vestiges of his former acquain- 
tance. The cemetery of Weimar, lying just outside the town, has 
an untrimmed look which suits a cemetery. Flowers and shrub- 
bery and grass are not much curtailed of their natural freedom. 
This wildness and unclipt exuberance is in harmony with the spot, 
and gives to it a softer and a quieter aspect. In the centre is a 
small chapel for funeral services. Through the middle of the 
floor a large round opening, guarded by a balustrade, communi- 
cates with the Grand-ducal vault below, wherein, with those of 
the sovereign family, lie the bodies of Goethe and Schiller. We 
descended by the stairway into the vault. It was neither dark 
nor damp, and was mildly perfumed by burnt incense. Here 
was naught of the gloom of a charnel-house. 'Twas as though 
the immortal spirits of the great inmates had purified it of all stains 
of death. Beside their holy remains we lingered with feelings of 
cheerful elevation. It was not a place for sadness. The coffins 
are raised three or four feet from the ground. Those containing 
the bodies of Goethe and Schiller are side by side, apart from the 
others. I stood between them, with my hands resting one on 
either coffin. 

The late Grand-Duke of Weimar, Chartes Augustus, the friend 
of Goethe and Schiller, and who is illustrious by that friendship, 
requested that his body should be placed between the bodies of 
the two Poets. He had a right to make the request : he was 



PHYSIOLOGY OF THE BRAIN. 57 

worthy of that exalted place. He was not merely their friend 
and generous protector ; he had a soul that sympathized with 
theirs. Whether it be, that his successors, animated by a low 
jealousy, are unwilling to recognize his right to this great privi- 
lege, or that they are influenced by a still more ignoble motive, 
his request has not yet been complied with. The coffin contain- 
ing his body lies by itselC 

In the study of Schiller I sat down one morning at his 

desk, and with ink dipped from an inkstand of Goethe, I took 
phrenological notes on a cast of Schiller's head. There was a 
seat and an occupation ! But nothing is complete in this loose, 
fragmentary world. Why was there no mould from the cranium 
of Schiller's renowned friend ? Because men are such laggards 
behind truth. The momentous, brilliant discovery of the physiol- 
ogy of the brain was promulgated in the beginning of this cen- 
tury, and first in Germany by its great discoverer, Gall. And 
still, though so easily verified, it remains unacknowledged by 
scientific men on the continent of Europe. In freer England, 
and freest America, its truth has been forced upon the scientific 
in a great measure by the enlightened perseverance of the laity. 
Goethe, whose sympathy with the spirit and processes of Nature 
was the source of his wisdom, meeting with Gall, who, in a tour 
through Germany, was expounding his newly-made discovery, 
Keceived it at once into his mind, with that large hospitality which 
he always extended to new-comers from the realms of Nature. 
Pity that he had not cultivated acquaintanceship into intimacy. 
His name would have been a passport to this fruitful truth, and 
thus have hastened by half a century its acceptance among his 
countrymen. In that case, moreover, his friends and executors, 
knowing the scientific value of a fac-simile of his noble head, 
we should have had his by the side of Schiller's, to compare to- 
gpttier and contrast the two. 

The brain of Schiller, from its large size and general confor- 

3* 



58 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

mation, denotes uncommon energy, great force and warmth of 
character, and irresistible mental momentum. In his organiza- 
tion there was a rich mingling of powers. What he undertook 
he went at with a zeal that rallied his whole nature to the ser- 
vice, with a volume of impetus that bore him on with burning 
velocity, and with a resolution that no obstacle could stay. His 
undertakings were high, his aspirations ;joble. Onward, onward, 
upward, upward ! might have been his device. With all this 
fiery enthusiasm, this impatient activity, he undertook naught 
rashly. He was at once impetuous and prudent. He was self- 
confident, but with consciousness of his gifts he united an insa- 
tiable thirst for better than he could furnish. His ideal was so 
exalted it kept him ever learning and expanding. Goethe was 
often astonished, when they would meet after a not very long 
separation, to find what progress he had made in the interval. 
His intellect was under the spur of his poetic expansions fed by 
his hearty impulses. His mind was kept at red heat. His 
nature was earnest, and even stern. If there was in him no 
sportiveness or humor, neither was there any littleness. His love 
of fame was strong, but he bought to gratify it by lofty labors. 

Schiller's intellect was broad and massive, not subtle nor pene- 
trative. Hence, with all his material of sympathy and inborn 
passion, wherewith he energized and diversified his characters, 
they lack individuality and compactness. In the most finished 
there is a certain hoUowness. It is not so much, that they are 
not distinctly enough differenced one from the other, as that each 
is not tightly knit up into itself, as in Shakspeare and Goethe. 
Schiller was not the closest, most scrupulous thinker, and thence 
in creating characters he could not thoroughly interpenetrate the 
animal and sentimental vitality with the intellectual, which inter- 
penetration must be in order that each personage have his definite, 
rounded, vivacious existence. Nor is the action in his dramatic 
structures always bound up.in the sevei*est logical chain. Schiller 



SCHILLER. 69 

\\ fls not a Poet of the highest order ; he was not prophetic, not a 
vates. He did not deliver truths, or embody beauty in creations, 
so much above the standard of his age that they have to wait for 
a higher culture to be fully valued. His generalizations have 
not the unfading brilliancy which those truths have that are 
wrought in the mine of emotion by the intensest action of reason. 
Between his intellect and his sensibility there was not that perfect 
accord which makes the offspring of their union at once veracious 
and ideal, and elastic from the compactness of their constituents. 
His grasp of intellect was not so strong as was his imaginative 
swing. When the cast was put into my hands what first struck 
me was the want of prominence in the upper part of the forehead. 
Speaking of his early flight from Wurtemberg, Schiller de- 
scribes the joy he felt in having thenceforward no other master 
than the Public. To an ardent young Poet it could not but be a 
joy, akin to that of moral renovation, to escape from the suffocation 
of tyranny, to find himself rid of a narrow King and face to face 
with the broad multitude. But there is a still higher Tribunal, — s, 
through which too the Public is in the end more surely and perma- 
nently won than by direct appeal to itself, — the tribunal of Truth. 
To this and this alone the true Artist feels himself amenable. 
For, the Artist's function is, to purify the sensibility of his fellow- 
men, to instruct them by awakening a poetic admiration, to chas- 
ten their taste. By creations in harmony with the absolute true 
and beautiful, he develops, and cultivates the latent aesthetic capa- 
bility of the mass. His part is to be a teacher, not a flatterer or 
prosaic purveyor. Great Artists are always above their Public. 
Did Shakspeare suit himself to the common judgment of his day ? 
So little so, that even the shrewdest of his contemporaries dis- 
cerned not half the meaning and merit of his wonderful creations. 
He himself, — sublime isolation, — was the only one of his time who 
knew their transcendent worth. To think, that for more than a 
century there was in the whole world but one man who entirely 



60 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

enjoyed the Tempest and Lear, who was capable of fully loving 
Imogen and Juliet, and that man was Shakspeare. What kind 
of appeal to the general judgment of Charles the Second's genera- 
tion was Paradise Lost ? Wordsworth scorned the Public, who 
laughed at him, and having survived a half-century his earlier 
Poems, had the personal enjoyment of a tardy justice, his genius 
being acknowledged by a more " enlightened Public" than that 
which first so coldly greeted him, his later contemporaries paying 
him reverence as a true Priest in the service of Beauty and Truth. 
He had to make the taste by which he was appreciated. Goethe, 
mentioning in a letter to Schiller, the limited sale of one of his 
best Poems, Hermann and Dorothea, comforts himself by adding 
ironically, — " we make money by our bad books." And Schiller 
himself, who always wrote in pursuit of a refined ideal, says 
somewhere, that the Artist's mission is to scourge rather than to 
truckle to the spirit of his age. 

It is much for a man to possess several eminent qualities that 
Jveep him on a high level. Schiller was upborne by his poetic 
nature and his love of humanity. He had not the deepest sensi- 
bility for truth. Thus, although, under his poetic and generous 
inspirations, he appreciated and practically fulfilled the Artist's 
function, his impulse when first freed was towards fame. From 
the same source, — that is, the absence of arched rotundity in the 
region of conscientiousness, — I would infer a want of punctuality 
in engagements, literary and other, and venture to conjecture, 
that by this failing his friend Goethe was occasionally somewhat 
put out. 

Among the precious relics was the bedstead whereon Schiller 
slept, and whereon he died at the early age of forty-six. Often 
at night, he put his feet into a tub of cold water, placed under his 
writing-table, in order thereby to keep himself awake. He worked 
his brain to the uttermost, and wore himself out with the noblest 
labor. It were easy to figure him seated at his desk, with " vis- 



SCHILLER AND GOETHE. 61 

ionary eye" and furrowed brow, intently elaborating thoughts 
which his pen hurriedly seized, when a knock, drawing from him 
an unwilling " Herein," he would lift his eyes with a look of al- 
most sternness, for the unwelcome interrupter ; and then suddenly 
his countenance would relax and beam, as the tall figure of 
Goethe advanced through the opening door, and rising with an 
eager motion, he would greet his friend with cordial words ana 
hand-grasp. And the fever of his mind would subside. The 
calm power of the self-possessing Goethe would soothe him 
without lowering his tone ,• and when, after Goethe's depart- 
ure, he set himself again to his work, it would be with the re- 
freshed feeling of one who, towards the close of a midsum- 
mer's day, has just bathed in the shady nook of a deep, tranquil 
stream. 

On one side of the desk is a sliding chess-board, to be drawn 
out when wanted. Here, the guardian of the house declared, 
Goethe and Schiller sometimes played. This I refused to ci'edit, 
and put it down as a false tradition. Games, — even those in- 
volving bodily exercise, — are the resource of the vacant ; and I 
would not believe that two such full-brained men, whose inter- 
views were to them both enlivening thought-breeders, would ever 
dedicate their tete-a-tete meetings to this solemn frivolity, this 
ingenious emptiness, this silent, sapless pastime. Still, against 
the circumstantial conclusions of reason, there was the sliding 
chess-board. 

Owing to some misunderstanding between Goethe's heirs 

and executors, his house is only opened one day in the week, and 
even then his study is not shown. On entering the drawing- 
room, I perceived that there had been crowded into it sets of 
porcelain, piles of prints, vases, and other articles such as a man 
of Goethe's celebrity and tastes would, in a long life, collect by 
purchase or gift. The room looked like a crammed curiosity- 
shop. Without exchanging a word with a person who was there 



62 SCENES AND THOUGHTS- IN EUROPE. 

to serve as expounder, I turned back, and with feelings of disgust 
instead of satisfaction, left the house. 

I contented myself with the outside of the abodes of Herder and 
Wieland. 

After I had studied the cast from Schiller's cranium, and 

had thoughtfully wrought out a correspondence between it and 
his mental endowments as exhibited in his life and writings, fit- 
ting the cast to the character, and the character to the cast, as is 
the pleasant way with phrenologists, I learnt from a gifted phy- 
sician in Weimar, that there was a slight — a very slight — doubt 
as to whether the cranium from which the cast had been taken, 
was that of Schiller. When, many years after his death, the 
bones of Schiller were dug up, to be removed to the Grand-ducal 
vault, it was found, that his body had been buried so near to two 
others, that the sexton was not absolutely certain which of the 
three skeletons was his. Goethe confirmed the sexton's decision, 
from the arm-bones of that one which the sexton believed to be 
Schiller's, declaring, that no other man in Weimar had arms of 
such length. The testimony of the sexton's memory and Goethe's 
inference, I make bold to corroborate with the cranium, whose 
size and shape are in harmony with the man and poet Schiller, 
such as we know him from his life and writings. 

Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Herder. They still inhabit 

Weimar. Once they trod its streets as flesh-and-blood men, 
whose daily living was a benefaction and an adornment. Now 
they abide in it as genii, and make the little town large by their 
large spiritual presence. They attend you wherever you go, 
sanctifying and beautifying your path by their magical potency. 
They beckoned me into the palace, where four rooms have been 
dedicated to them, one to each, whose walls are ennobled by 
painted scenes from their works. Walking in the park, the 
Grand Duke passed me with his simple equipage ; but I had just 
come from the " Garden-House" of Goethe, and the presence of 



THE GREAT DEAD 63 

the great poet and sage was so vivid, that to me he was the living 
reality, and the reigning Duke went by like a phantom. I might 
say with the concluding lines of the beautiful, touching dedica- 
tion to Faust, — 

Was ich besitze seb' icb wie im weiten, 

Und was verschwand wird mir zu wirklichkeiten.* 

The great dead are the most living inhabitants of Weimar. The 
town was to me a cemetery, and each house in it a sepulchre, 
which sent forth by day instead of by night, its coated or gowned 
ghost. The time best to enjoy the company of Weimar's high 
inmates, were midnight, when the present generation being in 
their tombs, one would b£ free from their petty intrusion. But at 
that solemn hour the wearied traveller sleeps, and if perchance he 
dreams, his visions are apt to be more dyspeptic than poetic. 

* What I possess I see as in the distance, 
And what is gone comes back in firm consistence. 



CHAPTER XI. 



EISENACH THE WABTBUEG LUTHES. 



On our way back from Weimar to Frankfort, we stopped at 
Eisenach, tiiat we might go up to the Wartburg, and look out 
over the wooded hills and valleys of Thuringia, from the same 
window through which Martin Luther daily looked for ten months. 
In this little room, himself a prisoner, he kept on at his sublime 
work, the liberation of Christendom from papal imprisonment. 
Here, plying his sinewy pen, he wrote those words which Rich- 
ter calls half battles ; and taking off from the Bible the Latin 
cloak wherewith priestcraft had hitherto concealed it, he clothed 
it in warm, homely German, which the newly invented types 
snatched up, and poured by tens of thousands upon his awaken- 
ing, spirit-hungered countrymen. 

Pause we a few moments on the Wartburg, while we recall the 
early life of this wonderful man. The best monuments of men 
are their lives, and those of our benefactors we never tire of con- 
templating. In their self-written inscriptions there is an enduring 
significance. We are fortified by coming near to their greatness. 
It is a profitable curiosity that pries into the modest beginnings of 
men whose matured lives have swollen to so broad a current, that 
they inundate the history of their kind. Only the greatest rivers 
are eagerly traced to their source. 

The boy out of whom grew the gigantic man, Martin Luther, 
once begged in the streets of the town there beneath us, singing 



LUTHER'S FATHER. 65 

before houses to earn bread, as was the custom tlien in Germany 
for poor school-boys. Dame Ursula, widow of John Schweichard, 
taking pity on the child, gave him a home in her house, and kept 
him at school in Eisenach for four years, after which he entered 
the University at Erfurth, where his father was then able to sup- 
port him. *' Luther," says Michelet, " writes of his benefactress 
with words of emotion, and on her account showed gratitude 
towards women all his life." 

Luther's father was a worker in mines. Like other peasants 
of that day, some of whom, in imitation of their seignorial masters, 
adopted armorial bearings, John Luther took for his arms a ham- 
mer. This symbol of his humble trade was prophetic of the voca- 
tion of his son, for Martin proved to be a hammerer whose blows, 
struck with the boldness of a martyr and the force of a Titan, re- 
shaped Christendom. He hammered Catholicism out of its cath- 
olicity ; he broke its universality. With the mighty sledge-ham- 
mer of reason, he knocked half the limbs off of the Pope, who 
since that hops on one leg. 

Luther was destined for the law ; but like all men in whom 
are conjoined a large soul with a large intellect, the study of what 
has been falsely termed the " reason of humanity." had for him 
no attraction. Tjiterature and music were his delight. " Music," 
he says, " is the art of prophets ; it is the only one which, like 
theology, can calm the troubles of the soul, and put the devil to 
flight." He seems to have had feeling for Art ; he was the 
friend of the famous German painter, Lucas Cranach. The early 
spontaneous tendencies always denote important elements in the 
nature of a man. The geniality which in Luther underlay the 
dogmatic theologian and brawny combatant, was an ingredient 
of his greatness. 

The more powerful the nature, the less is it liable to be directed 
by circumstances. A warm, vigorous mind makes new circum- 
stances as a medium for itself, and resists the old ones. This 



66 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

initiative potency .is the source of progress in tlie world. But the 
strongest cannot wholly withdraw himself from the action of out- 
ward pressure, nor even from the controlling effect of single 
events. Luther had just entered manhood, when the current of 
his life received a new direction from a startling incident. One 
of his companions was struck dead at his side by a flash of light- 
ning. In his terror he made a vow to St. Anne to become a 
monk if he escaped. Fourteen days later, after having spent the 
evening gaily with friends in making music, he entered at mid- 
night the monastery of the Augustines in Erfurth, carrying with 
him nothing but Plautus and Virgil, It was two years before his 
father would be resigned to this his son's self-immolation. At the 
end of that time he consented to be present at Martin's ordination. 
A day was chosen when the poor miner could leave his work, 
and he brought with him and gave to his lost child all the money 
he had laid by, twenty florins. 

There is beauty in this early passage? in the life of Luther. 
That he should have kept a vow taken at such a moment, is proof 
of his truthfulness and his resolution. In the act there was 
fidelity and strength. Then, the grief of the father, ending in 
the bestowal on the son of all his savings. One rejoices to meet 
with touching facts like this in the early life of a great man. 
Such are always to be found where men are manly and true- 
hearted, and it is by the substance out of which they spring 
that greatness is nourished. 

To turn monk is for a man to abdicate his humanity. He 
truncates himself of his upper endowments. He extinguishes the 
higher lights of life, those that are fed by the sympathies of labor 
and of love. He cuts the, myriad threads that, binding him to 
his fellows, are the sole means of unfolding and fortifying his 
manhood. Thus isolated, the mind, — which can not be totally 
' stifled, — preys upon itself. The monk is abandoned to a moral 
self-defilement. He dwindles to be the shadow of a man, or he 



LUTHER AS MONK. 67 

bloats out to be a beast with feeding for his chief work. Lulher 
could not stay monk, but his initiation into a monastery was for 
himself and for Christendom an immense event : it was decisive 
of his career. Monk-like, he preyed upon himself, but thereby 
a stirring was given to his deep nature. In the terrible tussles 
of the spirit, light went up in him that otherwise had probably 
smouldered forever. He stumbled upon a neglected Bible. 
Conceive of Luther, with a conscience as inexorable as Rada- 
manthus, an intellect like St. Paul's, unaided by other human 
insight or sympathy, imprisoned with unthinking, unbelieving 
monks, unlocking the Book. There was food and an appetite ! 
Job and Isaiah, and David and St. Paul first made known to 
Luther. We are now familiar with the Bible. On entering 
manhood we find ourselves possessed of its substance without 
knowing how we have come by it. The Bible is a universal 
heir-loom in protestant families. But in 1505 it was a sealed 
book. If a few learned recluses had read it, they had merely read 
it ; it fructified not in them for their or others' profit. Were a 
cohort of Angels to come singing from the Heavens visibly and 
audibly celestial symphonies in our ears, we should hardly be 
more amazed than was Luther, as his deep eager spirit suddenly 
found itself in full communion with the inspired singers and 
sages of the Old and New Testaments, their large solemn souls 
receiving his as the ocean receives a turbid great river, which 
there finds calm and transparency. 

In the monastery Luther had his first great lesson. He learnt 
there faith, not from his brother monks, who had none, but from 
his own thirsting spirit that had found its" mate in the grand, fiery 
soul of St. Paul. 

Without faith a man is not a lull man. By self-reliance a 
strong man can do much, but to do the most, to self-reliance he 
must add reliance on the High. " Things hoped for" must be- 
come " substance" to his eyes by the intensity of his belief in 



68 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Good. Into such strength are his powers knit up by this spir- 
itual attraction, that he is then, and only then, ready and fit for 
greatest undertakings. 

In the providential schooling that Luther went through to train 
him for his destined task, the second lesson was his journey to 
Italy. Had his heart not been opened in the monastery, his eyes 
would not have been opened to see what was to be seen in Italy. 
The poor Augustin Monk set out on foot, full of joy and hope 
and spiritual life. On the way he was harbored at the monas- 
teries of his order. Coming down from the mountains upon 
Milan, he was there received into a monastery of marble and 
seated at a sumptuous table. He passed from monastery to mon- 
astery, that is, from palace to palace. Venturing once to tell 
some Italian monks that they would do better not to eat meat on 
Friday, this freedom nearly cost him his life. Astounded, sad- 
dened, the single-minded German pursued his foot-journey through 
the burning plains of Lombardy. He arrived ill at Padua ; 
still he would not halt, but pushed on and reached Bologna al- 
most dying. Restored to health, he hurried forward, traversed 
Florence without stopping, and at last entered Rome. He fell 
on his knees, raised his hands to Heaven, and cried out, " Hail, 
holy Rome, sanctified by the holy martyrs, and by their blood 
which has been shed in thee." In his fervor he ran from one 
holy spot to another, saw everything, believed everything. He 
soon discovered that he believed alone. He was in Rome, but 
Christian Rome no more. 

The fallen Marius, seated on the ruins of Carthage, was a less 
sublime spectacle than the erect Luther in Rome, amidst the 
ruins of the Christian faith. One spiritually-minded priest, amid 
that sensual throng ; one living soul, amid all those deadened 
souls , one believer, amid Rome's mitred scoffers ; one humble, 
God-trusting man, amid haughty atheists. What a sublime thing 
is the mind of a true strong man ! In that festering darkness 



TETZEL. 69 

shone, — invisible then and there, — a spark of living fire, from 
the which was to be kindled a light that would illuminate and re- 
warm Christendom. 

At the end of fourteen days Luther quitted Rome. He fled as 
from a town smitten by the plague. He says : " I would not for 
a hundred thousand florins not have seen Rome. I should have 
been troubled for fear that I did the Pope injustice." 

When Tetzel, the papal vendor of Indulgences in Germany, 
having to the long list of orthodox sins added crimes and infamies 
of his own imagining, perceived his auditory struck with horror, 
he declared with sangfroid, " Well, all this is expiated the moment 
the sound of hard cash rings in the strong-box of the Pope." In 
this announcement the Dominican church-broker embodied in the 
most transparent formula what gets to be the aim of all Hierar- 
chies. They ti'affic in souls for gold and dominion. 'Through 
hopes and fears, stimulated by their fictions, they draw from men's 
pockets the money wherewith to consolidate their power, and then 
use their power to get more money. 

After the Roman the richest church in Christendom, is the 
Anglican ; and it is so because it is, after Rome, the best organ- 
ized. The recent schism sprang from an effort at a still tighter 
organization, and this unavoidably brought the Pusey party nearer 
to Rome. Organization as app.lied to a Church involves indepen- 
dence of the People. By organization the Priesthood gets a per- 
manent existence above, aside of, more or less independent of, the 
masses, according to the completeness of the organization. This 
independence, isolation and organic self-subsistence feeds ambition 
and encourages the impudent blasphemous assumption of especial 
God-derived sanctity. 

The moral duties of priests are well or ill performed, according 
to the moral atmosphere of each country. Bui the good that 
priests do, they do as men not as priests. And the richer they are 
as priests the less good will they do as men. 



70 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

The acme of priestly greed, impudence, and imposture, is the 
selling of Indulgences, — a practice by no means yet disused. 

At the time that Tetzel commenced the sale of indulgences in 
Germany Luther was Doctor in Theology, Professor in the Uni- 
versity of Wittemberg, provincial vicar of the Augustines, and 
charged with the functions of the Vicar General in the pastoral 
visits to Misnia and Thuringia. He was high in place, of great 
consideration and influence. But he was one of those true men 
upon whom high trusts impose high duties. Indignant at this vile 
traffic, he applied to his Bishop, praying him to silence Tetzel. 
The Bishop answered him, that he had better keep silent himself. 
He then wrote to the Primate, the Archbishop of Mayence, but dis- 
trusting him, on the same day that he despatched his letter he affix- 
ed to the Castle-Church of Wittemberg his celebrated propositions. 

A great truth or idea is something so deep and subtle, even 
when most simple, that the great man who announces it conceives 
not its full import. He is the depositary of a germ from the Uni- 
versal, the which he is commissioned to plant and to till, but it is 
a new seed, and to what it will grow he cannot foresee. But 
ideas once planted by man are watered and nourished by Provi- 
dence, for Providence doth ever countenance genius. A far 
bolder and broader act than Luther himself knew was the publi- 
cation of those propositions. Striking at the most accursed of 
tyrannies, tliat over the mind, he opened a breach through which 
by gradual enlargements man was to come out from all prisons, 
civil as well as ecclesiastical, out of royal bondage into republican 
liberty, out of Lutheranism itself as well as out of Romanism, 
• — such progressive life is there in truth. Not only were the im- 
mense historical after-consequences of his first act necessarily in- 
visible to Luther, but so vigorous and rapid was its fecundation 
that its effects upon his contemporaries astounded him. Upon no 
one did it work more potently than upon himself. Of the eman- 
cipation of his own mind, not only from papal but from regal au 



DECLARATION OF MENTAL INDEPENDENCE. 71 

thority, brought about, unconsciously to himself, by the working 
of his first great anti-papal act, tliere is lively evidence in the new 
treasonable freedom wherewith he soon after wrote of Princes. 
He says of them ; — " You ought to know that from the beginning of 
the world a prudent Prince is a very rare thing, rarer still an upright 
P]"ince. They are generally great fools or great reprobates."* 

It was on the 31st of October, 1517, that Luther affixed to the 
Castle-Church of Wittemberg his propositions. 

Since the first day of the Christian era there had been in 
human annals no day so pregnant, so solemn as this. To Ameri- 
cans especially this day ought to be holy. Without it tliere had 
not been that other memorable epoch-marking day, the 4th of July, 
1776. On the 31st of October, 1517, was made to the world the 
Declaration of Mental Independence. Upon Germany, upon 
Europe, it fell like a trumpet-tongued summons from a better 
world. Luther found himself hostilely arrayed against the Pope. 
That was a fearful position. Even the great Luther shrank 
back ; and had he not had above his strong intellect a conscience 
that would know no compromise of principle, and behind it a 
courage that could brave all the Powers of Earth and Hell, he 
would have succumbed. In the middle of the 19th century we 
can scarcely conceive what strength, what moral grandeur that 
man must have had, who, in the beginning of the I6th defied the 
authority of the Pope. Luther did defy it steadfastly. He assert, 
ed the spiritual self-sufficiency, the moral dignity of man. By 
all freemen he should be revered as one of their mightiest deliver- 
ers. Noble, stout-hearted Brother; we thank thee for thy great 
courage, we thank thee for thy great intellect, and above all we 
thank thee for th}' great conscience. 

* Tlie truthfulness of Luther's picture of Princes has lately been ac- 
knowledged in Prussia, where a volume selected from his writings, contain- 
ing his opinions of them, was burnt by order of government. Luther burnt 
in protestant Germany ! What a close hug Kingcraft and Priestcraft are 
giving each other to strengthen themselves against Democracy. 



CHAPTER XII. 

WHO FOLLOWED LUTHER RACES COLOR CHRISTIANITY PROTESTANTS AND CA- 
THOLICS ENGLISH AND SPANISH AMERICA CONVERSIONS TO ROMANISM 

RELIGION. 

It is of deep historic interest to note, who followed Luther in 
this vast stride ; who in that age was capable of being freed from 
the yoke of sacerdotal usurpation. 

" ! the difference of man and man," 

cries Goneril. So different are men, that there never were two 
just alike ; and at the same time all are so alike, that we must 
acknowledge the cannibal for our brother. Nations, — organic 
multitudes geographically defined, — like the individuals whereof 
they are composed, likewise differ one from the other. Races, 
too, — numbered by naturalists at from three to six, each embra- 
cing many nations, — differ broadly in aptitudes, habits, manners, 
physiognomy, color. This last quality, color, be it observed, is 
not a mere superficial mark, but denotes deep differences, being 
an index of mental capacity. At one end of the human scale is 
the black man, at the other the white, between them the brown 
and yellow. The white man never comes into contact and con- 
flict with the others that he does not conquer them. The brown 
and yellow he subjugates or exterminates, the black he holds in 
bondage. The two extremes meet in this close union.* In color 

* They who, assuming for themselves a pre-eminence in philanthropy, 
run into such extremes of opinion and indignation, because their white 



THE WHITE RACE. 78 

there is great significance. Nature is never arbitrary, nor slial- 
low, nor illogical. She would not stamp one man white, another 
brown, another black, and mean nothing thereby, or no more 
than surface-diversity as among cattle or flowers. White and 
black — light and darkness — these are deep words. Whence is 
it that the white is always at the top of the scale of humanity, 
the yellow in the middle, and the black at the bottom ? Not of 
choice, not of outward influences are these pervading, enduring 
facts tlie result, but of law and inward motions. 

None but nations of the white race, and only a few of these, 
have a civil, a political history ; that is, a development and the 
record thereof. History implies growth, that is, childhood, youth, 
maturity. National growth implies depth and a fund of resources. 
In the current of centuries, a people of high organization unfolds 
itself from within, until it reaches a refined multiplex life. Slow- 
ly it traverses degrees, planting itself on its advancements still to 
ascend. Its annals are written in comprehensive institutions that 
fortify its progress, and in monuments, not merely solid and en- 
during, like the Pyramids of Egypt, — for that were not enough, — 
but deriving their durability from their instructiveness, like the 
statuary and architecture of Greece, and the books of the He- 
brews, Greeks, and Romans, — statues and books that still live, 
not because they reflect the thoughts and deeds of those nations, 
but because in their thoughts and deeds was the vitality that 
springs from the beauty there is in truth, and the truth there is 
in beauty. These three are the only nations of Antiquity that 
were nervous enough to create history, and therefore the only, 
ones from whom the moderns have learnt. 

In each of them, be it noted, the democratic spirit was strong, 
but only partially develeped ; for its full unfolding, Christianity 

brothers hold by inheritance their black brothers in bondage, let them look 
discerningly into Natural History. The search may have the effect of en- 
larging the range of their fraternal solicitude. 

4 



*!i SCEXES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

was needed, — Christianity, which is the highest moral genei-aii- 
zation ; which would substitute charity for force, broad faith for 
petty hopes, justice for expediency. 

The other races, ancient or modern, the colored, have not in 
them the spring for indefinite progressiveness, for God-clasping 
development, no upward yearning for moral or intellectual gen- 
eralization. Feeble on their path are the traces of beauty or wis- 
dom ; shrivelled or immature their intellectual fruit. They have 
no ripe art, no great books, no history. They are not expansive, 
not creative. They cannot clear the circle of animal littleness. 
They lie bound in the sterility of savageism, or the immobility of 
barbarism : their life is an intellectual and moral pauperism. 
They are unfinished, and according to both history and philoso- 
phy, — whose testimony when concurrent is clenching, — destined 
not to be finished. 

When we use the phi'ase, "the great cause of humanity;" 
when we speak of man as capable of being indefinitely enlarged 
by thought and invention, and exalted by poetry and sentiment ; 
when we triumph in the growth of science and culture, our 
words, whether or not we will it or know it, apply only to the 
white race. History declares that the only aesthetic, the only 
scientific man, is the white man. 

Christianity is confined to the white race, and does not embrace 
all that. This is an enormous fact in the natural history of man. 
Christianity involves a struggle of man to put himself under the 
rule of his highest sentiments. Only the white race has had the 
•inward impetus, the conscious need, the swelling vitality to make 
this struggle, to escape from the tyranny of sensualism into ihe 
upper region of possible liberty where predominates the spiritual. 

Christianity, promising the reign of justice, leads to liberty, for 
men can only get to freedom through the dominion of their noblest 
faculties. It has been a path for going forward and upward. 
Upon this path mankind could only enter after it had reached a 



PREDOMINATING NATIONS. 1i 

certain growth. Far ahead of all others on the earth are those 
nations that entered it. They and only they have gone continu- 
ously forward. Where they have not, is owing partly to this — 
that the spirit of Christianity — the aspiration for a higher life — 
has been smothered by ecclesiastical usurpation. In the 14th and 
15th centuries, after ages of priestly tyranny and sophistication, 
it had got to be so smothered. Wickliffe, Huss, Jerome of Prague, 
Savonarola re-uttered this spirit to priest-ridden Christendom, and 
prepared its soul to hearken to Luther. 

To some nations are allotted high functions in the life of Hu- 
manity. In ancient times the Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, 
predominated in turn over the race. In modern history, Italy 
emerged first out of the mediaeval darkness. Among the Italians 
there was, in the 13th and three following centuries, a revival of 
the Greek and Roman genius. Iirthe struggle for emancipation 
from ecclesiastical dominion, commenced by Wickliffe, and tri- 
umphantly conducted by Luther, the German breed led the way. 
The Reformation embraced northern and central Germany, Svve- 
den, Denmark, Holland, and Great Britain, all belonging to the 
German family. In mixed France it took deep root, but did not 
gain over openly more than one eighth of the whole population. 
In Spain and Italy the priesthood was too strong, and manhood 
then too weak for it even to take root. In Poland it scarcely, got 
a footing. In the Austrian dominions, out of a population of 
thirty-five millions, but three millions two hundred thousand are 
protestants. In Switzerland, more than half the inhabitants are 
protestant. 

The place held among nations, at the time that Luther put 
forth his propositions, by Spain, who rejected them, is now held 
by England, who accepted them. It is no longer the petty Queen 
of Spain, it is the mighty Queen of England, that can say, " The 
sun sets not in my dominions." Like the Ariel of her Shak- 
speare, England has put a girdle round the globe. The influence 



76 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

upon the thought of Christendom exercised by Italy through her 
Dantes, her Machiavellis, her Galileos, in the 15th and 16th cen- 
turies, has been, in the 18th and 19th, transferred to the Goethes, 
the Niebiihrs, the Flegels of Germany. Protestant Holland shook 
off the dominion of Spain, and erected herself into an independent 
Republic, that for a time disputed the sovereignty of the seas 
with growing England, and was strong enough to resist the power 
of Louis XIV. Catholic Belgium remained subject to Spain. 
Where are the colonies founded in America by Spain and Portu- 
gal and by Englishmen ? The Protestant United States, in power 
and influence, take rank beside the first nations of Europe. If a 
people, like a man, is prosperous and strong in proportion to the 
number, variety, elevation and vigor of its thoughts and sensa- 
tions, which are the parents of deeds, the life of the United States 
for fifty years exhibits such an unprecedented growth and success 
in all departments of human activity, as to entitle them to claim 
a place, not beside, but in front of all the nations of the earth. 
To the spirit which made Protestantism, that is, the spirit of in- 
dividual liberty, of manly independence, we owe this progress 
and unexampled welfare. What is Mexico, or Brazil, or Bolivia ? 
What part do they play in the stirring, striving. Christian com- 
munity ? What conquests are they making in the domains of 
Nature — what fruitful secrets do they wrest from her deep heart ? 
What discourse is heard among them of great human interests ? 
New ideas, winged thoughts, what acceptance do they find among 
the nations of South America ? Ask their oracles, their priests. 
In France the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the revocation 
of the edict of Nantes tell the strength of Protestantism, and with 
what dread it filled tyrants. At this moment hardly the half of 
Frenchmen can be claimed by Rome. With the mass, Catliolic 
observances are a habit rather than a faith. Among the educated 
there is an almost universal religious disbelief in the Church, 
coupled with a political belief in it as an engine for keeping the 



CONVERSIONS TO ROMANISM. 11 

people ignorant and dependent ; and for this end it is the most 
efficient apparatus that human ingenuity stimulated by human 
egotism could devise. The French Revolutions that have pulled 
down the throne and set up man, have shaken the altar and put 
God in the place of the Pope, 

In Italy the open profession of dissent from the Romish Church 
is not tolerated. But those who, despising its mummeries and 
hating its extortionate tyranny, reject in their hearts as well its 
spiritual as its temporal assumptions, are to be numbered by mil- 
lions. Let Italy become independent, and there will be revealed 
a sum of Protestantism, of protesters against Priestcraft, a tithe 
of which will counterbalance the trumpeted conversions to Ro- 
manism from among the idle, ennuied " Nobility and Gentry" of 
England. 

Conversions* to Catholicism in Protestant countries should in 
most cases be looked upon as a throwing out of morbid particles, 
a salutary moral crisis. People who, brought up in the light 
of Protestantism, feel too weak to bear that light, why let them in 
God's name retreat and shield themselves in darkness. Liber- 
ally speaking, these losses are a gain. We want to go forward, 
and these good souls have not even the self-supporting life to stand 
upright ; they must go back for support out of themselves. Peace 
go with them. 

In this survey of Protestant and Catholic nations, what pre- 
sents itself as the most striking contrast between them ? It is 
this, that not one of the purely Catholic is independent. Popery, 
which, as an Italian writer says, " is a Theocracy founded on 
the absolutely moral slavery of man," destroying individual in- 
dependence, undermines national. Italy, the fountain-head of 

* These conversions, be it noted, are chiefly from the Chiu-ch of Eng- 
land, which has features of likeness to tliat of Rome. To weak minds, 
or to tliose that to a sensuous quality of intellect unite a peculiar s liti- 
mental organization, the tranaition from Auglicanibm to Romanism is logical, 



78 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Catholicism, where Protestantism is proscribed under penalty 
of imprisonment or death, has been for centuries a prey to the 
foreigner. Portugal, as Catholic as Italy, the favorite torture- 
house of the Inquisition, is a dependence of Protestant Engl'and. 
Spain, where by a late concordat the ban against Protestantism 
has been renewed, is so helpless, that she had within thirty years 
to call in a French army under the Due d'Angouleme to uphold 
the tottering Bourbon throne, and having lost nearly all her im- 
mense colonies, is now obliged to appeal to England and France 
to prevent the last remaining one from falling into our hands. 
Poland, — blotted from the list of nations. Austria, — saved lately 
from destruction by the sword of Russia. Ireland, — compare 
Ireland with Scotland. France, vigorous, independent France, 
has not only four or five millions of Protestants, but how many 
millions besides of Voltairiens, until lately, when Skepticism, 
which is by the natui-e of man short-lived, having passed away, 
Socialism, or a belief in man involving a deeper belief in God, is 
begetting a higher Christianity than has yet animated Christendom, 
— a Christianity destined to be far more fruitful than ever was 
the theological, the which however is now everywhere almost as 
good as dead. 

But deeper and stronger than either", than Catholicism, than 
Protestantism, both perishable, is the imperishable Christian prin- 
ciple of liberty, the quenchless longing for absolute mental free- 
dom. Protestantism was the assertion of this principle against 
the usurpation of Rome. , It was a conflict for truth, but not 
itself the broadest truth, that it could not be ; a struggle for 
emancipation, but not itself the largest liberty, that it could' not 
be. It quickly put bounds to its own essence, the right of private 
judgment, of free inquiry ; it narrowed itself to isms. It is not 
universal in its embrace ; it is partial, and thus runs into Secta- 
rianism. It has no Pope, but it has creeds ; it has no monasteries, 
but it has theological seminaries ; it has no independent hierarchy 



RELIGION. 79 

(except in England), but it has dogmatic priestiioods. In its 
churches ecclesiastical abuses are vastly mitigated, by no means 
fully abated. Protestantism has its army of priests, who are, too 
many of fhem, Jewish in their narrowness and their hates, and 
in their assumptions papal ; and who, if they could, would, like 
their Romish colleagues, persuade us that priests are essential to 
salvation, the very depositaries and dispensers of spiritual life, 
the indispensable bond to unite men to God. In this they serve 
themselves more than God and men. When a man places him- 
self between God and another man, he intercepts the light and 
casts a shadow upon his brother. He is a false priest who would 
make himself indispensable to men as a medium of union with 
God. The true priest aims to unfold the soul, and thus disclose 
to it its own innate powers and grandeur. 

A primary and pre-eminent element of our mental being is re- 
ligion. To say of a man, he is without religion, is as much non- 
sense as to say he is without lungs. Bi'eathing is not more 
essential to the physical life than is to the moral a recognition of 
the Infinite, a reverential consciousness of the Absolute and Un- 
speakable. So sophisticated are men's minds by one-sided teach- 
ings, that they come to regard religion as a something they get 
from the priest, a spiritual treasure guarded and dispensed by the 
priesthood. At stated periods they go to Church to receive their 
share of it, like stockholders to the Bank to draw their dividends. 
They have made an investment in the Church and leave the 
■ management thereof to the priests, who pay them in prayers, 
sermons and Uturgies. In this way forms usurp the place of sub- 
stance, dead material husk of spiritual kernel. 

As are the temperament and the moral and intellectual wants 
of a people so are its divinities, who are modified, aye moulded, 
by the mental characteristics of eac-h. Hence the difference 
between the Gods of the Greeks and the God of the Hebrews, be- 
tween the worship of the Hindoo and that of the African. Men 



80 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROrE. 

can only conceive God according to their own capacities. To 
the low man ever a low God. As individual men ia their nar- 
rowness would have other men like themselves, so aggregate 
men, men in tribes and nations make God like man. Anthro- 
pomorphism is the egotism of unemancipated humanity. Through 
culture and moral enlargement we attain to the conception of 
he vitalizing omnipresent Deity as incorporeal essence. As 
man rises, the Deity shines the more purely upon his heart, God 
and man exalting one another. To the upstriving man the Deity 
holds out a helping hand, ascending ever higher and higher, the 
more and more effulsrent with intellect and love as man mounts 
after him towards the centre of Liberty and Truth, the eternal 
home of the infinite Gbod. 

Jesus, an inmate of this heavenly home, from the depths of his 
large soul proclaimed the law of love, justice, unity. This 
solemn, momentous proclamation has remained a prolific abstrac- 
tion, kept present to the human soul by the inborn need of its ful- 
filment. Only in Jesus himself burnt purely the light of his 
revelation. The Apostles his agents were tainted with Judaism. 
And soon the spirit of priestcraft, which had crucified Jesus, took 
possession of his doctrine and soiled it. It is not yet purged of 
the soiling. The God of priestcraft is a God of wrath, inspiring 
fear more than love, a priest-made God to serve priestly ends of 
dominion ; gloomy, revengeful, the oppressor not the liberator of 
humanity, whose messengers are oftener devils than angels. Do 
you purify man by defiling God with cruelty ? By abasing man 
do you exalt God ? Do you strengthen the heart by compressing 
it into intolerant creeds, do you shelter it under mystic imagina- 
tions ? Out of trite fancies and sour sensibilities you would build 
up Deity, and present as the Infinite the image they make on 
your finite brains. In flimsy phrases you would word the Un- 
'speakable, in fleeting vesture clothe the Eternal, and then you 
solemnly declare the outcome of these your theological inventions 



DEGRADATION OF DEITY. 81 

to be God, and summon us to worship as the Creator this your 
dwarfish misshapen creature. 

What profit hath the soul from these degradations of Deity ? 
Is it not akin to image-worship, this petrifaction of fallible inter- 
pretations into staunch creeds ? Beams from the central Light 
deflected through Judaic imaginations, can they retain any 
warmth for the 19th century ? What knowledge or nourishment 
is there now in these ancient aspirations ? Is spiritual life re- 
plenished by feeding more on the man-made than the God-made ? 
This temple built with hands, what is it to the sanctuary within 
the heart ? This formal conned ritual, what is it to the spontane- 
ous aspiration of the soul ? What are your loud prayers and 
hymns to the voiceless communion with the Infinite ? The silence 
of a Church is voiceful to the solemnity of a man's conscience ! 
Your altars, your surplices, your mitres, your cathedrals, your 
consecrations, all are but verbiage and stitchwork and brickwork, 
ostentatious, transitory, in face of the eternal self-renewing life, 
the deep sacredness of the soul of man. Protestantism, one-sided 
and short-coming as it is, was the rehallowing of this desecrated 
sanctuary, the reassertion of this unacknowledged sacredness. 
The Reformation of the 16th century rescued men from much of 
their captivity to priesthood. It shattered many of the bars that 
made churches prisons. It is an illuminated phasis in the his- 
tory of liberty, of Christian deliverance. 

* The light then kindled in a few souls now shines over Chris- 
tendom. From the door of the humble church in Wittemberg, 
where it was first set up, that light spread from land to land, from 
generation to generation, vivifying and fortifying wherever it fell, 
so that at the present day those nations that opened their hearts 
the widest to its rays are the foremost on the earth. But from it, 

♦ Chapters xi. and xii. were delivered as a " Lecture on Protestantism" in 
Newport, R. I., in January last. On that occasion this concluding para- 
graphs was added. 



82 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IS EUROPE. 

all the peoples of Christendom, those who are struggling to 
achieve, as well as those who possess liberty, be they Catholic or 
Protestant, chrefly draw their animation. Whether in America, 
where to the disenthralling, life-cherishing principles of the 
Reformation* we owe the best of what we have done, of what we 
are, of what we have, including the privilege so happily habitual 
among us that we forget its value, the privilege I at this moment 
use of publicly speaking on things of universal interest my hon- 
est thought, without fear of gaol or gibbet ; — whether in stead- 
fast England, the mighty mother of nations, who owes so much 
of her might to her protestantism, and to her truth-loving heart 
that made her accept it, where together with an obsolete aristoc- 
racy and an unspiritualized church, a load of dull Dukes and 
carnal Bishops, tliere is a fund of large manhood and freedom ; — 
whether in France, where by means of tyrannical centralization 
and military organization, both inherited from monarchy, a pigmy 
miscreant has just been enabled to enact a gigantic crime against 
a long-suffering but never disheartened nation ; — whether in Ger- 
many, where protestant princes, faithless alike to God and man, 
are foully leagued with Jesuits and Cossacks to cheat and berob 
an enlightened, temperate, and too trustful people of v/hat is 
dearest in life, a patient people, too, but who now knowing and 
valuing their I'ights, give their robbers their hate, biding the time, 
which must soon come, when they can give them their ven- 
geance ; — whether in Italy, bleeding, beautiful Italy, where in 
the north the brutal Austrian vainly strives to trample out man- 
hood with the soldier's heel, where in the south the Bourbon, 
fanatic in ferocity, slaughters men like cattle, where in the cen- 
tre, in majestic Rome, the Arch-despot of the world blasphemously 
calls himself the vicar of Christ, while, seated on a throne built 
of foreign bayonets fleshed in the breasts of his subjects, he gives 
one hand of fellowship to the man-shaped tiger of Naples, and the 
* See note at the end of the Chapter. 



ARCHBISHOP HUGHES'S LECTURE. 83 

other to the perjured traitor of France, and, encircled by greedy, 
lowering Cardinals, whose red robes are dyed redder in their 
brothers' blood, he hearkens for the secret curses of his awakened 
people, who ceaselessly lust for the blood of their oppressors, and 
ceaselessly sigh for freedom, having learnt their cruelty from 
their priests, and their aspirations from their own hearts. — Wher- 
ever the breath of freedom swells healthfully in man's breast, or 
gasps painfully in sobs and ^ghs ; wherever men possess, or are 
striving for the blessings of freedom, not one in any land of 
Christendom, whether Catholic or Protestant, not one of these 
many, many millions but owes much of what he has, or of the will 
and courage to desire and to dare, much of his richest inheritance 
or his noblest resolution, to the poor German miner's son, to the 
moral boldness, the intellectual might of Martin Luther. 



NOTE. 

In a Lecture entitled " The Catholic Chapter in the Hi"story 
of the United States," delivered in New York in March 1852, 
Archbishop Hughes says, — " It is altogether untrue to assert that 
this is a Catholic country, or a Protestant country. It is neither. 
It is a land of religious freedom and equality." General usage 
justifies the calling of a people Catholic or Protestant, according 
as a large majority of its inhabitants belong to the one or the 
other of these religious divisions. Thus, southern Germany is 
called Catholic, northern Germany Protestant ; Ireland Catholic, 
England Protestant. The United States, where only a fraction, 
about one tenth, of the population, is Catholic, are called, there- 
fore, Protestant. But, apart from common parlance, what strictly 
autTiorizes a designation is, the principle which rules a country 
in religious matters. By this logical test, the United States are 



8.4 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

thoroughly Protestant, and the Pope's dominions in Italy thor. 
oughly Catholic. In the United States, there are absolute re- 
ligious tolerance and liberty ; in papal Italy, constraint and ab- 
solute religious intolerance. Absolute intolerance is a fundamen- 
tal Catholic doctrine, which is not merely preached but severely 
practised, as the world knows ; and practised not only against 
Italians, but also against strangers, so that American Protestants, 
while in Rome, are not permitted to meet together for public 
worship ; such outlaws and damnable heretics are they regarded 
by Pope and Cardinals. In this country, on the contrary, not 
only is there absolute religious tolerance, but so productive is this 
high Christian principle, that even Romish prelates here are 
obliged to avow it, in the teeth of the theory and practice at head- 
quarters. Thus Archbishop Hughes, in tliis Lecture, " hopes 
that it will remain a land of religious freedom and equality to 
the latest posterity." On other occasions he has made like dec- 
larations. These avowals have no significance as signs of the 
wishes and purposes of an Archbishop ; for Catholic prelates ex- 
ercise — especially, we presume, when dealing with heretics — a 
right of mental reservation, which paralyzes any positive inter- 
pretation that the ingenuous might put on their words, and is 
probably large in proportion to the hierarchical elevation of the 
dignitary. But they have significance, as showing what is the 
power of Protestantism -liere, and what a very Protestant country 
A.rchbishop Hughes thinks it, that he, a nominee of the Pope, 
drawing from Rome his archiepiscopal breath, should feel obliged 
'o reiterate so unpapal, so uncatholic a sentiment, the which he 
would no more utter in Rome than he would there laud Luther 
or deny purgatory. 

" If," cays the lecturer, " there had been only one form of 
Protestantism professed in all the colonies, I fear mucn that even 
with Washington at their head, the Con^itution would not have 
been what it is in regard to I'eligious liberty." But it is the very 



MARYLAND. 81 

nature of Protestantism, when it has free play, to break a people 
up into many sects. The essence of Protestantism is the right of 
private judgment in religious belief, which right leads unavoida- 
bly and healthfully to multiplication of creeds. Protestantism is 
a protest against sacerdotal dominion, and the assertion of indi- 
vidual religious independence. It frees men from the yoke of 
priesthood ; it empowers every man to define his own creed, to 
choose, or to be, his own priest. This, the fundamental principle 
of Protestantism, involves absolute religious liberty. That Prot- 
estant sects and men have violated this principle, proves only the 
fallibility of men, but shakes not the foundations of the principle 
itself. However uncharitable some sects in this country may 
have been, or may be, in their feelings towards each other, a 
higher law controls them — the law of Protestant freedom, which, 
if not complete, goes yet to the extent of guaranteeing to each 
man immunity from interference of State or Church, against his 
will, in his religious profession. Granting that the multiplicity 
of sects led to this general tolerance ; the multiplicity of sects is 
the robust offspring of Protestantism, and by its excess here 
proves, that this country is ultra-protestant. 

•In a "Catholic Chapter in the History of the United States," 
Maryland would of course not be omitted. What right has Arch- 
bishop Hughes to say " Catholic Maryland," he who a few pages 
before asserts that this country is neither Protestant nor Catholic ? 
If this country was not at first and is not now Protestant, how can 
Maryland be called Catholic ? Among the first colonists of Mary- 
land there were Protestants, as there were Catholics among the 
first colonists of the other provinces. The proportion of Protes- 
tants in the Maryland colony was at any time as large as that of 
Catholics in all the other colonies, or in the United States, after 
their independence. With his own words we contradict Arch- 
bishop Hughes' designation, and say, that Maryland " was neither 
Catholic nor Protestant. It was a land of religious freedom and 
equality." — And as such it was in its birth eminently uncatholic. 



8G SCENES AND THOUGHTS EST EUROPE. 

To learn wliat the Catholic view of a subject is, we must go to 
Rome, to the Pope who appoints the Archbishops Hughes, to the 
Cardinals who appoint the Pope. Rome is the fountain of all 
Catholic doctrine. Now we find that in Rome, at present, and at 
the time that Maryland was founded, and at all times, nothing is 
more abominated than this very religious liberty. " I will not,' 
by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, molest any person 
professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion." 
Such was the oath prescribed by Lord Baltimore for the Governor 
of his Maryland. Did he get that from Rome ? Does the Pope 
prescribe such an oath for the Governor of his Rome ? Papist 
or the dungeon of the Inquisition, that is the alternative of the na- 
tive Roman. Torture or death awaits him who there presumes 
to exercise what Lord Baltimore fully and formally granted, — 
freedom of conscience. Not even can strangers there worsliip 
after their choice. Let a score of Maryland Protestants try it 
within the walls of Rome ; they will find that they dare not even 
meet together to say their prayers. They will not be indirectly, 
but most " directly molested," lest by their Protestant commu- 
nion the capital of Catholicism be desecrated, and Pope and Car- 
dinals insulted and scandalized. And yet Rome's bemitred 
minions here, claim the founding of Maryland as Roman Catho- 
lic work ! — If a Quaker were to forget the precepts of his religion, 
and take to swearing and fisticuffs, would the odium of his aber- 
ration fall on the whole " Society of Friends," or only on the 
exceptional member ? If a lawgiver inserts in his code a clause 
in flat conflict with a fundamental dogma, an inflexible maxim, of 
the church to which he belongs, a clause the directly opposite of 
which finds place in the code of that church itself; in after-years, 
when this clause turns out to have been wise and creditable, is 
the church to claim the merit thereof, and that too when her own 
practice is still as hostile as ever to the very principle embodied 
in that clause ? As the Quaker, for his unquakerly conduct is 



LORD BALTIMORE. 87 

read out of meeting, so Lord Baltimore, for his official unpapal 
religious tolerance, would doubtless, — but for worldly considera- 
tions, — liavp been sentenced to do penance or to pay a round sum 
for absolution, if even he had not been excommunicated. For 
the sin of liberality (although only verbal and calculated) in this 
lecture and other similar occasions. Archbishop Hughes has, I 
dare say, penitently to mortify the flesh, or else be absolved (be- 
forehand probably) by ihe Italian Prince, his master. 

The original Constitution of Maryland, drafted by the Pro- 
prietor, was the work of a clear-headed, large-hearted man, — a 
man so strong, that, in founding a state so early as the beginning 
of the seventeenth century, he put at its basis the broad human 
rights of civil and religious liberty, — a man so Christian, that 
the unchristian intolerance of even the Church he had chosen, 
did not taint his heart. If the King who endowed him with this 
domain on the Chesapeake did, as has been suimised, as a Pi'ot- 
estant, exact religious tolerance in the organization of the new 
government. Lord Baltimore, if this tolerance had been unpal- 
atable to him, would have applied for lands to the King of 
Spain or of Portligal ; and these " most Catholic" sovereigns 
would eagerly have granted to one so honored in England as 
he was, a choice tract in their rich American possessions ; and 
there he could have established himself, like his neighbors, to 
his Catholic heart's content, in severest Catholic exclusiveness. 
But the papist was not uppermost in Lord Baltimore's nature, 
and therefore he had not recourse to Spain or to Portugal, and he 
sought not help of the Pope. The liberal claus'es of his charter, 
so hostile to the spirit of Romanism, and so deservedly celebrated 
in history, were dictated by his own high human feelings ; and 
no heretic-cursing Pope, no ambitious sophistical Archbishop, has 
claim to a tittle of his noble deed. The illustrious founder of 
Maryland belongs not to their side, but to the opposite one of 
humanity and freedom ; and to him their eulogy is no honor. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

BUPPER-TABLE AT THE " HALF-MOOn" IN EISENACH ANN AD ALE GEIMm's TALES 

MIGRATION WESTWARD. 

In the evening the company at the supper-table of the " Half- 
Moon," in Eisenach, was enlivened by the news, just arrived 
from Cassel, ofthe flight of the Duke. It was the opening act 
of the Hesse-Cassel political melodrama, which afterwards ended 
unmelodramatically with the triumph of the guilty and the fall 
of the innocent. Except that the end is not yet, and will only 
be after that the whirlwind, — which ere long will envelop all 
Germany in gloom and terror, — shall have passed over, and from 
the bosom of the enfranchised people shall have arisen a higher 
justice than has ever yet presided over German affairs. 

As I have generally found this summer at German Inns, — 
except those of fashionable watering-places, — the majority ofthe 
little circle at the " Half- Moon" was democratic. The discussion 
of the doings in Cassel was conducted with vivacity, but with 
good temper. One of the' speakers was the head-waiter, who, 
without either forwardness or timidity, took part in the conver- 
sation, and expressed moderate opinions in good language, per- 
forming at the same time his duties round the table with watch- 
fulness and alacrity. The spirit of the great Wartburg pris- 
oner, that animates so many millions all over the globe, had 
made a man of this humble servant. 

The traveller through Eisenach should take two or three hours. 



TRADITIONS. 89 

— whether he has them to spare or not, — to visit Annadale. 
After a drive of two miles through a beautiful valley, you enter 
on foot a narrow winding gorge, whose rocky sides are embow- 
ered by overhanging trees, under which you walk on a gravel 
path not wide enough for two abreast. But what constitutes the 
peculiar beauty of the place, and marks it as a unique natural 
curiosity, is the fine moss on the rocks, covering them as com- 
pletely and as smoothly as if silk velvet had been carefully fitted 
on them by feminine fingers, and kept of the most vivid green by 
the shade of the forest and the moisture from springs. 

It is a place to tell fairy tales in. With such poetry before the 
senses, the mind grows fantastic. So much beauty should not 
be wasted on solitude ; it solicits you to people it. One can 
readily conceive how an imaginative race like the Germans 
should, in their robust youth, have populated the dells of their 
virgin forests with fays and fairies. These attended the Saxons 
Id England, where Sliakspeare by adopting, after educating them, 
has given them an everlasting home. 

Of the safety wherewith traditions travel down through many 
generations, with no other vehicle than the tongues of nurses 
and grandmothers, I had, while a student at Gottingen, a remark- 
able exemplification. One of the Grimms had just published a 
collection of children's stories all gathered by himself from the 
mouths of aged women, — chiefly in the Hartz Mountains- In 
looking through them I came upon one that was in its minute 
and absurd particulars precisely the same tale that I had heard 
as a child in America. A thousand years ago it had gone over 
to England, had there lived from mouth to mouth through thirty 
generations, had then traversed the Atlantic and dwelt for two 
hundred years near the shores of the Ch-esapeake, and now, 
brought thence packed away in the memory of an American, back 
to its starting-place, was found, after having changed its vesture 
from Gothic to Anglo-Saxon, and from Anglo-Saxon to English, 



to SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPR 

to match as accurately a tale now for the first time piintecl, aa 
one proof-sheet does another taken from the same form of types. 
In rude Gothic the two had parted more than ten centuries ago, 
and now met, the one in German, the other in English, and in 
the many vicissitudes of that long separation, neither had changed 
a feature. 

It were curious to seek the origin of these tales in the East, 
The affinities of language and similarities in many words point to 
the neighborhood of the Caspian Sea as the cradle of the German 
tribes. To some of ihe many inquisitive travellers, who are eager 
for new fields of exploration, here is a captivating enterprise, to 
penetrate to that region and bring away the popular and nursery 
tales as philological and ethnographical treasures. 

Tradition and researches do not entirely concur with the Mo- 
saic record in placing the origin of man in the East. Yet it 
were not unreasonable to suppose that man first appeared in the 
.highlands of Asia because there the Earth was first humanly 
habitable. From what is now observed and known, we are au- 
thorized to infer, that the whole surface of the Earth was not at 
once put in condition to be. the abode of man. Asia may have 
been first ready, and America or Australia last, perhaps thou- 
sands of years later. 

Facts justify the line of Bishop Berkeley that 

Westward the march of Empire takes its course, 

shifting its seat as the streams of population, — of white popula- 
tion, — pouring down from the centre of Asia towards its western 
confines and Europe, grew stronger and clearer the further they 
advanced. From Asia the march of Empire was to Greece, and 
thence to Italy, and from Italy still further westward to Spain, 
France, England. Driving ever westward, population followed 
Columbus across the stormy Atlantic, and founded on its Ameri- 
can shore an Empire that will as much exceed England in power 



MIGRATION GOES WITH THE SUN. 91 

as England does Rome in Rome's proudest day, and as Rome 
herself did the Assyrian monarchy in its broadest magnificence. 
But America had already been peopled. This population, com- 
ing out of Asia eastward, was met and driven back again towards 
Asia by that which came out of Asia through Europe westward, 
and is destined to be extinguished by the latter. 

That it is a law of Nature that migration should "go with the 
sun," we have startling proof in this fact, that the aboriginal in- 
habitants of America, who in peopling that Continent had violated 

• this law, are thus thrust back by those who obeyed it. This, it 
may be said, is only the superior white subjecting the inferior 
brown race. In India too the white man has subjected the brown, 
but he has not overflowed his territory and displaced him. The 
British and Dutch Indies are held by a handful of whites through 
military-possession. So the English, who have set an armed foot 
in CJiina, may subdue it as they have subdued Hindostan. But 
the peopling of the eastern shore of Asia with swarms from the 
great white hive, is to take place by migration westward, that is, 
from Oregon and California. 

The strong, the white race, streamed westward ; the western 
Asiatics are to this day white. Those who from the region which 
according to Oriental tradition is given as the starting-place of 
mankind went eastward, the Chinese, the Siamese, the Japanese, 
belong to the inferior brown and yellow races. It may be object- 
ed that all having originated from one stock, the difference of 
color was caused by climate, food, water and other external influ- 
ences. The force of these influences is undeniable ; but ad- 
mitting, what is by no means demonstrated, that the parents of the 
whole human family were a single couple, their color must re- 
main a mystery ; and therefore we cannot know whether climate 

^re-changed brown to white in Western Asia and Europe, or white 
to brown and black in Eastern Asia and Africa.* 

♦ A recent French writer, M. Henri Lecouturier, in a remarkable work, 



S2 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Color, in races, is not a mere outward cutaneous painting by 
the sun, but comes from within, from the blood. That long action 
of the sun with other outward agencies will change the quality 
of the blood, may be believed. But a strong race may carry 
within itself the vigor to resist and even to reverse the effect of 
these agencies. In figure the Anglo-Saxons in America have as- 
entitled Cnsviosophie ou le Socialism Universel, endeavors by an ingeftlous 
exposition to prove, that the birth-place of man was in the Polar region. 
According to his deduction the first man was black and covered with hair, 
and like certain tribes still fonnd in Africa, was nearer to the Ourang Ou- 
tang than to the white man. Towards the Poles, it was that the Earth first 
became cool enough to be habitable ; and when man first appeared, the 
climate there was as warm as it now is under the Equator, while that of the 
temperate and torrid zones was so hot as to be uninhabitable. With the 
receding of the Ecliptic, — which at first extended over the whole ninety 
degrees, — and the corresponding receding of the focal fires within the 
Earth, the cooling of the surface, which began at the Poles,' extended 
gradually to the temperate zone. At the same time the polar region grew 
cooler and cooler, and the first men, adapted to the greater warmth, followed 
it and gradually approached the equator, in the heats of which their de- 
scendants are now found in Africa. 

His hypothesis is, that the first man was preceded by the monkey, who 
went before him also in migrating towards the equatorial region, where he 
is still found. As the monkey left man behind him, so the first race of 
black hairy men left superior men their descendants behind themselves, 
the race improving in color and quality with the cooling of the Earth and 
the purification of its zones, until, after many ages of successive migrations, 
the inferior breeds following the heat and the superior taking their place, 
the whole Earth was peopled, and the highest types were found in the 
temperate zone and the lowest in the torrid. 

The genealogy of man, says M. Lecouturier, may be learnt by beginning 
with the present occupants at the tropical regions and going northward. 
The most advanced will be found in the temperate zone, and the most back- 
ward, that is, the primitive and oldest races, in the torrid. For a general 
classification he divides the human family into three races, the lowest, the 
middle, and the highest; the Ethiopian, the Mongolian and the Caucasian; 
each embracing several varieties. 

The Finns, Laplanders and Esquimaux, a stunted and misshapen race 
living on the borders of the Arctic circle, are remains of the primitive races, 
who refused to follow the current that drew them towards the warm lati- 
tudes. Philological researches have shown such an affinity between the 
Finns and the Hungarians, that Berghaus puts them down on bis Ethno- 



THE PATH OF PROGRESS IS WESTWARD. 93 

similated somewhat to the North American Indians; but who 
would thence conclude, that they are to grow downward to them ? 
On two races so wide apart as these, the one having an organiza- 
tion so superior to that of the other, is it not reasonable to pre- 
sume, that external influences, telluric and solar, magnetic and 
material, might act with opposite effects, weakening the weaker 
race and strengthening the stronger ; and that thus, while the 
Europeans in North America, under the above influences, should 
come to resemble in some minor characteristics the natives, the 
gulf between them would in the main be widened, and the original 
organic superiority of the white race be not only maintained but 
augmented ? 

This proclivity of man, or rather of the white race, westward, — 
exhibited in subordinate movements as well as in the great cardi- 
nal migrations, — would seem to proceed from an instinct that 
harmonizes men unconsciously with the order of Nature. West- 
ward is the path forward, the path of progress. Conservatism 
looks backward, that is, eastward. Thus at this moment, princes 
in Germany look with hope to Russia, in Spain to Rome ; the 
People, with a deeper intuition, to America, and themselves. On 
the other hand, Russia dreams of another Scythian invasion, and 
Rome is straining to get command of the advanced guard of hu- 
manity in America, — which she will do when printing shall be 
there prohibited as the abettor of crime, and steam suppressed as 
a disturber of the public peace, and the reasoning faculty pro- 
scribed as an obstacle to virtue, — a prohibition, suppression, and 
proscription practised in the papal dominions, and which the pa- 
ternal chiefs of the Roman Church are making a last agonizing 

graphical maps as belonging to the same tribe, thus confirming the opinion 
of M. Lecouturier, who says, the handsome valorous Maygars are directly 
descended from the poor emaciated dwarfs of tlie polar regions. 

This curious theory of tlie peopling of the Earth is not in contradiction 
with the westward migrations, which only commenced with the white race, 
that is, after that all the zones of the earth wore peopled. 



94 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

effort to perpetuate by means of the dungeon, the hangman, and 
Louis Bonaparte. In the great capitals, London, Paris, Berlin, 
New York, the west is the chosen quarter. Is this accidental, or 
is it not an undesigned, instinctive conformity to the saying, 
" The devil take the hindmost ?" a saying, the significance and 
sad truth of which, few people suspect. 

But it is time for us to obey the westward law, and move to 
wards the Rhine. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

0IE9SEN LEEBIG MAEIENBERG PRIESNITZ THE KHINK. 

On the way back to Frankfort, we stopped for the night at 
Giessen. It would have been a satisfaction to have availed my- 
self of the genial accessibility of German professors, to visit 
Liebig, one of the stoutest living scientific pioneers, — one of the 
precocious band that with the sharp edge of thought are hewing 
for their fellow-men paths into untrodden domains, — one of that 
bold brotherhood of discoverers who, in the holy privacy of the 
laboratory and the closet, reveal new truths by light struck from 
the contact of genius with Nature. But we arrived late and tired. 
I did not see a famous captain in the great army of progress, but 
at the public table, of the inn I saw a private working in the cause 
of conservatism, with a zeal and capacity that made me wonder. 
This was a supper-eater, who in order to conserve his body and 
soul tightly together during the night, transmitted through the 
portal of the human temple, his mouth, into the mysterious labora- 
tory of life, the following articles of food, each in unstinted por- 
tions, and in the order here named : — 1st course — fried potatoes, 
sausages, sourcrout, cold tongue ; 2d course — stewed pigeon, 
pudding, roast pig, cheese with bread and butter. For a man 
with a weak digestion, it was dangerous, just before bed-time, to 
" assist," as the French say, at the p*iling up into one stomach of 
this huge heterogeneous bulk ; for the bare image of it on his 
sleeping brain might be enough to cause nightmare. 



96 SCENES AND THOUGHTS m EUROPE. 

No matter how often you may have seen the Rhine, to 



come upon it is always an event. The renowned river is a line 
of beauty tracer] on the globe by Nature, and embellished by man. 
On its shores I have dwelt so much, so pleasantly, and so profita- 
bly, that whenever I return to them they give me the glad greet- 
ing of a home. 

To go back to old haunts is a reduplication of life. With the 
skipping actualities of the fretful present noingle the silent memo- 
ries of the past, like marble statues looking upon a market-place. 
As we came down the Rhine, we bade the docile boat turn in 
again to the pier of venerable Boppart, that during the latter days 
of September we might tarry within the walls of the solid, fa- 
miliar, roomy, old convent of Marienberg. A return to its gardens, 
its corridors, its terraces, we enjoyed the more, because we were 
not now, as in years past, to work hard for bodily salvation with 
aid of its healing waters. 

What perverse children of Nature we are. She gives us 
health, we quickly set about to turn her gift into disease ; she 
promises abundance, we choose to stay poor ; she offers us pala- 
ces, we burrow in hovels. In all things we are unnatural ; in 
eating, in drinking, in our outgoings and incomings, in our labors 
and our pleasures, in politics, in religion, in medicine. Under 
the spell of a cajoling conceit, we build up codes that are false, 
and then maintain them by sophistry and force. Most of our life 
is a kicking against the pricks. For our weal we should be al- 
ways naturalists. Nature contains, is the law. Whether his 
work be rare or daily, high or low, Nature is every man's mis- 
tress, and teacher, and helper. From the ploughman to the poet, 
the task is well done in proportion as she mixes in the doing. 
Wherein lies the excellence of Shakspeare, of Goethe, of Burns, 
of Wordsworth, of Moliere, as well as of Galileo and Newton, 
as well as of Fulton and Priesnitz ? In their greater fidelity to 
Nature. They are deeper and broader naturalists. 



THE WATER-CURE. 97 

The discovery of the power there is in water as a curative 
agent, was made by Priesnitz twenty-five years ago. Since that, 
the methods of its application have been scientifically improved 
and multiplied. Trials in acute diseases, and in all curable 
chronic ones, a thousand times repeated, have proyed its efficacy. 
And yet this truth, so large and simple and fruitful, this balm- 
laden truth, is accepted by but a fraction of reading, reasoning 
white men. Custom, -prejudice, interest, routine, timidity, con- 
spire to retard its acknowledgment. The poisoning pill-box and 
life-draining lancet, keep on decimating and maiming the race. 
" Business before truth," is one of the mottoes of civilization, and so 
the blood-and-drug doctors continue in trade, and out of nature. 

But let us seek comfort in retrospection. A hundred years 
ago the discovery of Priesnitz, like other discoveries that too 
far outrun their age, had probably died in its cradle. Men do 
reason more than they used to ; knowledge does circulate more 
briskly and widely ; truth has some service of the electric tele- 
graph. 

The choice spots of the globe for lounging, the one in 

winter and spring, the other in summer and early autumn, are 
the Boulevards of Paris and the Rhine ; the one the work of man 
assisted by nature, the other the work of nature enriched by 
man ; for a fog or a rain disenchants the Boulevards, and with- 
out its towns and villages and castles and. man-movement on 
flood and shore, the Rhine were not the Rhine. In midsummer 
the valleys that run back draw you into their shades ; later, you 
quit the stream for the heights ; but always the zest of the walk 
is when you issue out again upon the river, and to saunter along 
its margin is what one does oftenest. If you are alone, you have 
company in the peasantry tilling or gathering in the precious 
narrow slopes between the water and the precipice, in the way- 
farers on the smooth road, in the white-shining villages on either 
shore, in the old castles that solemnly address you from rock- 

5 



98 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

founded eminences like spectres half-protruded from their tombs, 
in the freight-craft and the persevering horses that drag tin m 
against the swift current, in the steam-driven boats that queen it 
over the river they have conquered, and in the old river him- 
self, a companion of infinite resources, of unfading freshness. 
Should you wish to rest, and from prudence prefer an indoor 
seat to one on a pile of macadamized stones, you enter the quiet 
inn of a village and call, not for a half bottle of wine, but for a 
" spezialen." A " spezialen" is a small tumbler-full, and costs 
a groschen, about two and a half cents. This, for the privilege 
of resting, an hour if you choose, even should the chair-bottom 
be of walnut, is cheap, — provided you don't drink the wine. If 
you are thirsty, drink grapes, and I knowliot a more epicurean 
contrivance than to walk yourself into a summer thirst of a Sep- 
tember afternoon on the Rhine, and then at sunset to be turned 
into a vineyard to slake it with purple bunches fast plucked 
with your own hand from the stalk. 

The Rhine ! The Rhine! so sweet he smells 

When buds the perfumed grape in June. 
Still dearer is his shade when swells 

The rippling breeze at summer's noon. 
But dearest when young Autumn's Sun 

Wipes tlie lato dew from purpled vine, 
And pours his ripening heats upon 

The spicy juice of pendant wine. 



c^9 



CHAPTER XY. 

"COLOGNE DUSSELDORF ^ARTISTS LEUTZe's WASHrNGTON FREILIGRATH. 

. Railroads and Commerce have put new life under the dying 
ribs of Cologne. The lazy, dirty old town, that fifty years ago 
offended the nostrils of Coleridge to the point of versification, has 
grown busy, and thence more cleanly. Whoever has the ses- 
thetic sense would be robbed of a rightful enjoyment, if in passing 
through Cologne even for the twentieth time he were not allowed 
to stop, just to breathe for a kw moments under the shadow of 
the Cathedral, the atmosphere of sublimity wherein that mighty 
torso of architectural art isolates itself. This is one of those 
great objects that so swell the mind with high emotion that pos- 
session eclipses hope. In this presence we are satisfied ; our 
contentment with the hour is brimming ; we are not driven for- 
ward or backward into time to fill the void we carry about in us. 
For mostly, the now is so flat and sour, that, horsed on the winged 
steeds of memory or of imagination, we fly to the far past or 
further future, to seek the pleasure we find not in the dull world 
we have built, and built with splendid materials, like senseless 
architects, who erecting a Palace should hide their marble and 
Mosaics in the foundation, and show above-ground only burnt clay 
and painted pine. 

The pleasures of memory and imagination are satires on pres- 
ent life, which is so poor, that we are forever running away from 
it, and betaking ourselves to the deceased past and the unborn 



100 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

future. In childhood we sigh for the stature and exemptions of 
youth ; in youth we count the years and months that bar us from 
the liberties of manhood ; in manhood we strain forward towards 
age on the untiring hack, Ambition ; in maturity we strive to 
comfort ourselves with reminiscences of youth and childhood, that 
come back upon us like chiding cherubs. We are always hur- 
rying out of to-day to get into to-morrow. We would subordinate 
this world to the next, and we employ at great cost a numerous 
class to teach us to give precedence to the world to come. We 
drink, and smoke, and read novels, to stave off the pressing hour. 
We thus make time our enemy instead of our ally — time, the 
flapping of whose wings are the pulses of universal life, whose 
hours are the foot-prints of forward-marching Eternity, and mark 
the unresting labors of the all-sustaining God ; labors, which it is 
our transcendent privilege to share, so prodigally, so divinely are 
we endowed. , 

Diisseldorf is an hour by railroad below Cologne, a neat, 

shady town, noted for its school of Art. A small city such as 
Diisseldorf, which becomes the seat of artists, pictures itself to 
you like one of those fine engraved heads of Poets encircled with 
a laurel garland. It stands in your mind crowned with the sym- 
bol of poetic triumph. The art-element, is not here, as in large 
capitals, an ingredient commingled and diluted with other supe- 
riorities ; it reigns in sole sovereignty, a sovereignty as benignant 
as that of light over darkness. Here are assembled a hundred 
men who have dedicated themselves to Beauty. To incarnate 
the spirit that pervades the two worlds, the world opened to ocu- 
lar sense and that revealed to the eye of the mind, this is their 
life's thought, aim, desire, act. Through Nature and History, 
through all lands and activities, through the densities of the real, 
and the sunny pomps of the ideal, wherever tliought or sense can 
stretch, they range in chase of Beauty, who flies from them as 
the maiden from the wooer whose love she would quicken by her 



WORK-ROOMS OF ARTISTS. 104. 

coyness. Wherever a high deed has been done, wherever men 
have sacrificed themselves for mankind, wherever the higher law 
has gained a victory, wherever through the impulses of generous 
natures poetry has become act, wherever the countenance of His- 
tory is agitated by great changes, there the artists gather. From 
the flowers of being they suclv food for the nurture of their souls, 
that they may fulfil their high function, which is, to second God 
in keeping the world replenished with beauty. 

The work-rooms of artists are among the pleasant places of the 
earth ; they are green spots in our desert of prosaic life. In 
them you get the repose of disinterested sensations. You are 
drawn out of your little self into your large self. You are, more- 
over, as guest, in the happiest position towards the host ; you par- 
take of a double, nay, a threefold hospitality ; for the man wel- 
comes you, and the artist entertains you, and the picture greets 
you, it may be with a peal of celestial clarions. Between the 
artist and his creation is a privileged standpoint ; through you he 
sends his thought to his work, which on its part beams with its 
fullest light in its master's presence. You stand as when gazing 
at a dewy landscape, and behind you the rising sun that has just 
brought it out of darkness. 

After the day's work, the painters at Diisseldorf assemble 
towards evening in a garden on the edge of the town. The re- 
laxation of fencing, and archery, and tenpins, in the open air, is 
something ; but that each one will meet a score or two of his fel- 
lows, this is the spur that, pricking each one, drives scores to the 
daily gathering. Men are so sociable, so human ; without the 
rays from one another's faces they could not keep warm. Here 
in their club the artists chat, and drink the drink made of hops, 
which even on the Rhine is more relished than that from the 
grape, and smoke, and play at games. 

" Manly games," is a phrase of universal acceptation. I d: ny 
its fitness, and affirm, that when men shall be more manly tiiey 



102 SCENES AJN'D THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

will have no games. They will then have put away cliildish 
things. Montaigne says that " sport is the work of children." 
Fourier says, that for young and old, work may become sport. 
One of the easy miracles of scientific socialism will he to make 
men rejoice in labor, and drawing even children from play, lead 
them to seek work as the best of sports. This miracle few people 
will believe till they see it. The world is much more ready to 
accept past miracles than future. 

But Montaigne is here as shrewd as ever in his observation. 
Children play with a worklike spirit, and indeed with them play is 
creative, aiding the growth of body and mind. For adults, games 
are utterly barren, and men with bats and cues and cards in their 
hands become children without the saving unconsciousness of 
childhood. A company of Englishmen on a lawn, spending their 
breath upon cricket, is no whit more respectable than a knot of 
Germans or Frenchmen in an eslaminet, intent round a marble 
table upon a bout of dominoes. Both are excusable to that broad, 
unpriestly charity, that covers with the sweep of its unpaid abso- 
lution all delinquencies. You forgive them as you forgive the 
theft of a meal by a pauper. Under the goad of moral hunger 
they steal from Time and Labor, the trustful stewards of Nature 
and Art, the guardians and treasurers of humanity, twin partners 
of the Divine Architect and eternal prime Motor. 

To its school Diisseldorf attracts some foreign artists, among 
them our countrymen, who get quickly on the scent of a good 
thing. A distinguished German painter told me, that of a num- 
ber of young American painters whom he had known, not one 
was without talent, but that they did not study with due thorough- 
ness. Structures of art to be good and durable, have as much 
need as cotton- factories of solid foundations. Genius can no 
more dispense with labor, than the eagle can with growth ; the 
growth of genius is only through methodical application. The 
strokes of scientific work are the pulsations that carry nutriment 



WASHINGTON. 103 

to the genial germ, and make it accrescent. But genius discovers 
its own science, and finds often slow furtherance on the beaten 
roads of routine. American artists, with more boldness and free- 
dom, carry to European academies a national impatience of de- 
lays, which may make some overleap the earlier indispensable 
gradations. But these are not the most gifted, for natural gifts 
feed themselves with the best food within their reach, as infalli- 
ble in their selection as the roots of prosperous oaks. So far 
from being too self-reliant, genius has a quick faculty of absorb- 
ing and assimilating to itself the fruits of others' thoughts and 
practices. Plodding talent lags behind the pioneers and dis- 
coverers, nimble genius never. It fuses in its focal fire all things 
about it, so that, whether for beauty or for strength, they flow into 
the moulds it is fashioning. 

In the studio of an American artist of high reputation in Ger- 
many as well as in America, I had one of those pleasant sur- 
prises that quicken the pulse more healthfully than a draft of old 
wine. On entering Leutze's spacious studio I came unexpectedly 
u^on his fine picture of Washington crossing the Delaware. I 
had not heard that he was at work on such a picture. My heart 
was suddenly flooded with a sublime home-feeling. In Washing- 
ton's majestic figure, the distant home, which he had done so much 
to build for me, became instantly present in a foreign land. 
What a bequest to his countrymen is this man's character. The 
great things be did are almost less than what he does. The image 
of him that grows into the mind of every young American, is a 
defence of his country as strong and steadfast now, a half-century 
since he died, as was in life his generalship and civil wisdom. 
His perpetual great presence is a national moral fortification. 

Another artist who has not wrought with the pencil but with 
a deeper instrument, was this summer living at Diisseldorf, the 
Poet Freiligrath, who having dedicated his genius to the cause 
of German emancipation, had made himself a mark for the hate 
and persecution of a retrograde government. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

CLEANLINESS BELGIAN PROSPERITY STATISTICS. 

Perfect cleanliness were general perfection. A man whose 
body should be absolutely clean, always, without soil outwardly 
or inwardly, were a model man, a breathing ideal, what is often 
named but never seen — a perfect gentleman. Body and soul are 
so closely married, and so content with the bond, that strongest 
spiritualists and materialists, countertugging for centuries with 
combined might to sunder them, have not started a joint, but their 
interdependence and I'eciprocal benefactions continue unweakened, 
visible in all the myriad phenomena of life, their marriage being 
as indissoluble as that between man and woman, the which, under 
varying conditions, must ever be, growing freer and purer as we 
Hear the Utopia of perfect cleanliness. 

But mutual dependence kills not freedom ; nay, freedom is a 
product of mutual dependence. Thence, the body may be cleaner 
than the mind, and the reverse. The co-operation is not inflexi- 
bly uniform. I doubt whether the five thousand best scholars 
of Germany are bodily so clean, as the five thousand busiest bag- 
men of England. For every result there is always more than 
one cause. In the main, however, mental cle-anliness precedes 
corporeal, here as elsewhere the moral element acting the mascu- 
line part, and taking the initiative. 

The more animal men are, the less have they of personal clean- 
liness. Savages are dirtier than barbarians, whose habits again 



DEGREES OF CLE.'mLINESS. 105 

are not acceptable to educated civilizees. Ritual ablutions, like 
those of Mahometans, are not a full substitute for the washings 
that are consequent on culture. Communities or nations that are 
stagnant, are dirty. Movement purifies men as well as air. So 
soon as a man rises from lowness, and becomes progressive, he 
grows sweeter. The same with a people. Speaking of the prac- 
tices of the Bretons in France, noted for their primitive igno- 
rance, some one reported of them that they bring their pigs into 
their houses at night ; " Oh ! the dirty pigs," said Victor Hugo. 
The Brettons are supposed to be unmixed Celts, a variety of the 
white race not pre-eminent for cleanliness. 

The English are the cleanest people of Europe, a distinction 
which is not shared with their fellow-subjects, Welsh, Scotch, or 
Irish. Next come the Dutch and Belgians, whose virtue on this 
side shines most, however, in their houses and streets, so that it is 
a satisfaction to cross from Germany or from France, into Bel- 
gium. To learn that the interior condition does not match with 
the outward, one has only to sojourn for a few weeks in a small 
Belgian town. But any advance in cleanliness is grateful and 
important, and a man who wears a fresh collar and bosom over a 
dirty shirt and an unwashed skin, is a better neighbor at table 
than if he had frankly exhibited his soiled linen. Nor is the Bel- 
gian neatness a false collar, it is genuine so far as it goes. 

On coming into Belgium, the travellers who, witnessing the ac- 
tivity in Liege and in the docks of Antwerp, and beholding the 
spaded tillage of the fields, should talk only with the wealthy and 
read the Independance Beige, or the Emancipation, might excusa- 
bly follow the common error that the Belgians are a very pros- 
perous people. While in 1848, their neighbors of Germany and 
France were in hot insurrection, they remained cool ; they are 
thriving and happy, and have nothing to gain by change. 

Over nations as over men, there is in our misorganized Chris- 
tendom a thick crust of hypocrisy, under which, instead of the 

5* 



106 SCENES AiTD THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

sweet juices of what is ripe and healthful, are crudities and pu. 
trescence. Let us break this crust, and note what we find be- 
neath it in Belgium. 

The official report* of the census, taken in 1848, makes kno#n 
the number of families in Belgium to be 890,566, and of inhabi- 
tants 4,337,196, being about five persons to each family. 

The habitations of these 890,566 families contain 2,758,966 
rooms, including cellars and inhabited garrets, giving to each 
family three rooms. Little enough, and less than is needful for 
health or comfort, or even decency. But this is the average. 
Many families have more than three rooms, and many therefore 
less. The census declares that 

154,454 families have each but one room ; 
282,785 families, each two ; 
453,327, three or more. 

Thus 437,239 families, making almost one half of the Belgium 
nation, have each but one or two rooms for their whole habitation. 

Over two millions of men, women, and children, every five of 
whom are lodged in one or two wretched rooms, badly lighted 
and worse "ventilated, and in winter poorly warmed ; this one 
room or two, serving as dining-room, kitchen, storeroom, cellar, 
work-room, sleeping-room, with rotting straw for beds, or leaves 
which you may see them gathering for this purpose in autumn, 
on the highway. 

In the cities, the proportion of families that have but one or two 
rooms is larger than in the country. Antwerp counts 18,000 fami- 
lies, 11,000 of which have but one or two rooms. Brussels has 
30,000 families, 13,700 of which have but a single room, and 
6,800 two rooms. The medical commission of the city of Brus- 
sels, declares that the abodes of the greatest part of the laborers of 

♦ See the speech of M. de Perceval, member of the Belgian Chamber of 
Ecpresentatives. 



STATISTICS. 107 

that city, are " living tombs whither these wretched men come to 
rest themselves, after twelve hours of work." 

The food of these two millions is chiefly rye bread and potatoes, 
and a limited quantity of these. In " good times," they have meat 
or fish once or twice a week, but it is the refuse of the markets — 
liver, lungs, heart, intestines, what in America is given to dogs. 

On the 30th of June, 1850, in the provinces of Flanders, out 
of a population of 1,415,484 there were 349,438 inscribed on the 
list of paupers. 

The habitations of half the population of Belgium are hot-beds 
for the forcing of physical and moral evils. Diseases generated 
by bad air and bad diet sweep off annually thousands of puny 
children. 

From these two millions what is to be looked for morally and 
intellectually for themselves, for the state. A man who has 
worked twelve hours to earn twenty cents, and then drags him- 
self through the stenches of filthy alleys to the stale odors of a 
pestilential home, to find there a haggard toil-worn wife, and sad, 
pale, hungry children, a supper of coarse brown bread, and a bed 
of foul straw, what moral content, what civic strength do his 
slumbers replenish ? He lies down without a thank for the day 
that is ended, he rises without a hope for the day that is be- 
ginning. 

When two millions out of four and a half writhe in this unhu- 
man degradation, the others will not have exemption from the ills 
of physical and moral poverty. The most favored of a com- 
munity cannot so isolate themselves but that against them will re- 
act the condition of the lowest, through conductors which no 
strength or skill can cut. The chastest maiden, whose thoughts 
and sensations build round her a halo that draws the homage of 
the purest, cannot, on the highest social elevation, escape infec- 
tion from the sickly breath of the harlot, whom she is yet too 
innocent to know of. It strikes like the inpalpable vapors of the 



108 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

pest. Unconsciously to herself her moral being is modified by 
the proximity of this social disease. Under Russian despotism, 
Belgian constitutional monarchism, American republicanism, men 
must form communities, they must have much in common, and 
cannot be rid of mutual dependence. In a higher social organiza- 
tion this dependence, which men now seek vainly to shake off, 
will be cultivated and a thousand- fold multiplied and strengthened, 
and with its strength will grow each man's moral and intellectual 
power and his freedom. 

In a social or political whole, whether constructed on a sound 
or fragile basis, parts dovetail into parts, individuals into indi- 
viduals. Connected, intermingled, interlaced with the two millions 
of semi-paupers of Belgium are other two millions of fellow- 
laborers, having more skill, many of them a little capital, earning 
instead of a franc, two, three, five francs, or more per day, who 
are most of them thus enabled to exchange often brown bread for 
white, and to garnish their potatoes and beans with more or less^ 
of animal nutriment. The iron hand of poverty is not on them, it 
is only suspended over their heads, and from them are replenished 
the ranks of the lowest masses, thousands annually slipping 
through the restless sieve of trading competition. 

Of the 890,566 families not more than ninety thousand, if so 
many, are clear of the pressure of straitened means. Three 
or four hundred thousand individuals, out of four and a half 
millions, whose daily life is softened by the comforts of civiliza- 
tion, who along with spacious carpeted lodging, meats fatted and 
cooked with art, the luxuries as well as the utilities furnished 
from flax, cotton and wool, enjoy leisure for culture, exemption 
from over-work and the freedom of movement allowed by pecu- 
niary ease. These favored few are the upper ranks of the 
" liberal professions," the bankers, merchants and large traders, 
the higher civil and military officers of the state, those who have 
inherited large capital, especially the " Noblesse," who, though 



RELATIVE CONDITION OF BELGIUM. 109 

now unrecognized by the state, enjoy with wealth tlie highest 
social position. 

Relatively to the four millions below them, these four hundred 
thousand have a happy existence ; relatively to, not a hopeless 
ideal, but to a condition attainable within the limits of a genera- 
tion by a hundred millions of living Christians, their life is barren, 
encumbered, slavish. 

I have cited Belgium, not because its statistics present a pecu- 
liarly dark picture, but because, on the contrary, in Europe it is 
regarded as a shining model of national weal. Bad enough, that 
" Statesmanship" and Political Economy should bring nations to 
this pass ; worse, that they know not how to get them out of it ; 
worst, that they perceive not the need of getting them out of it. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

FRANCE DEMOCRACY BONAPARTE LOUIS PHILIPPE ^LOUIS BONAPARTt. 

Vive la Republique ! 

We have crossed the line that divides Belgium from France. 
Vive la Republique ! What a promise, what a hope is in that 
shout ! What achievements it proclaims, what consummations it 
prophesies ! Not with the outward voice of a catching momen- 
tary fervor, bet solemnly from the depths of a soul-enkindled 
feeling be that stirring sound re-uttered. It is the rally-cry of 
Christendom. To France all Europe looks with hope. She is 
the centre of the new regenerating movement. Regenerating, not 
because it substitutes Presidents for Kings, citizen-representatives 
for Barons ; but because it is to break down political monopoly, 
to make governors amenable to the governed, and, far more than 
this, because by giving each man a vote, it is to raise each voter 
to be a man. 

Economy, simplicity, supplanting military by civil processes, 
less partiality in legislation and administration, wiser legislators 
and administrators (for this in the long'run is the result), equality 
before the law, bettering of most public methods, — all these are 
the minor gains of republicanism, whose essential virtue is in the 
energizing of the primary elements, in the recognition, cultiva- 
tion, refinement, enlargement of the substance out of which all 
forms of policy spring, and upon which they re-act, viz. : the 
masses of a nation, the individuals of its component multitudes, 



PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY. Ill 

in Europe so brutified by monarchic and aristocratic dcspotit^m 
as to have been lately designated by a leading " Statesman," M. 
Thiers, as la vile muUitude. 

Democracy is the diffusion, and at the same time the invigor- 
ation of light and organic life. It vitalizes the remotest parts; 
through it, generic power permeates the wliole social body. It 
is a substitution of man for the State, of men for things, of souls 
for bodies. Demanding liberty, it creates what it needs ; it be- 
gets the vigor whereby it is to be braced. Proclaiming the power 
of self-government, it develops a broader, deeper self. He who 
believes not in self-government is less than a democrat ; he who 
does is more. Democracy is progressive and expansive. Its as- 
cendency is the gain of much liberty, and the assurance of more. 

Honor to France. A glory greater than that dazzling one 
whereby she was so long blinded is hers, the glory due to bold- 
ness and insight in social transformations. In this sphere more 
fruitful will be her courage than in the battle-field, although on 
that there may be still some last laurels for her to gather. Na- 
pier, in his History of the Peninsular War, celebrating the bril- 
liant bravery of a French charge, notes as a characteristic of 
French nature, that the first fiery onslaught being repelled, their 
line is disheartened. They lack elasticity under defeat. Not so 
in that other higher field. With fresh hope and spirit they have 
returned to the charge under the banner of Democracy, after 
lying for fifty years in defeat. And again partially worsted 
after the triumphant onslaught of 1848, they exhibit a determi- 
nation, fortitude, calmness, forbearance, that bespeak convictions 
matured by thought, and a confidence that cannot be broken by 
discomfiture. 

The morning of new eras is liable to be overcast ; but blinded 
by ignorance or fear or malignity are they who mistake this tran- 
sitory obscuration for a relapse to the past darkness. A people 
that has in it the juices for mature strength may be retarded in 



112 * SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

its progress, but not arrested ; and what seem forced retardations? 
from without may be the natural currents of occult growth. The 
political revolutions of such a people can no more go back than 
can the planetary revolutions of the earth. Evolutions they 
should be called, for they are developments, however crash- 
ing may be the inaugurating acts. Democracy, or self-govern- 
ment, lies potentially at the heart of every people, that is, of 
every people of the white races. The time and manner of its 
emergence depend on mental constitution and outward influences. 
In England, where its spirit was ever strong, it took possession of 
the State under the Commonwealth, but it had not yet the cordial 
strength to impel itself arterially into all the members ; and the 
most capable man whom it created being by nature despotic in- 
stead of generous, regal instead of Christian, principles were 
smothered under usurpations, so that the bastard monarchy of 
Cromwell was at his death easily supplanted by the legitimate 
monarchy of the Stuarts. Many too of the most resolute for 
freedom had already fled across the sea to the newly discovered 
Continent, there on its virgin shores, unbefouled by the tares of 
oligarchical egotism, to lay foundations whereon was to rise a 
political fabric of purely democratic architecture, whose starry 
flag, unfurled at the end of the 18th century, was before the 
middle of the 19th to challenge the regards of the world as that 
of a preponderating Power among Christian States, Democracy 
had, if not its birth, its first wide national development in America. 
In France it came forlh a blind Samson, and buried itself 
under the ruins caused by its rageful grasp. Its movement was 
that of the loosened lion, whose courage is made frantic by hunger 
and fear. Men glared on men like unchained demons in a fam- 
ished hell. With insane relish they lapped blood : that was theii 
elixir for political renovation.* But all this was transient, ex- 

* In the massacre of St, Bartholomew, seventy thousand Frencl'imen 
were slain, two thousand of them in Paris. During the two years of the 



BONAPARTE BEHIND HIS AGE. 113 

plosive phenomena, the agony of a great people's travail where 
natqre had been poisoned, the convulsive writhings of an awa- 
keni>ig giant against gyves and handcuffs. It denoted the great 
streilgth of the binding cords, and the still greater of the power 
thi>t rent them. This power had at last recognized itself, and no 
bonds could ever again durably enthrall it. But here, as in Eng- 
land, the strongest child democracy had nursed, wielded the might 
wherewith she endowed him for the transitory ends of an impious 
ambition. 

Bonaparte was behind his age ; he Avas a man of the past. 
The value of the great modern instruments and the modern heart 
and growth he did not discern. He went groping in the mediee- 
val times to find the lustreless sceptre of Charlemagne, and he 
saw not the paramount potency there now is in that of Faust. 
He was a great cannoneer, not a great builder. In the centre of 
Europe, from amidst the most advanced, scientific nation on 
earth, after nineteen centuries of Christianity, not to perceive that 
lead in the form of type is far more puissant than in the form of 
bullets ; not to feel that for the head of the French nation to desire 
an imperial crown was as unmanly as it was disloyal, that a ri- 
valry of rotten Austria and barbaric Russia was a despicable 
vanity ; not to have yet learnt how much stronger ideas are than 
blows, principles than edicts — to be blind to all this, was to want 
vision, insight, wisdom. Bonaparte was not the original genius 
he has been vaunted ; he was a vulgar copyist, and Alexander 
of Macedon, and Frederick of Prussia were his models. Force 
was his means, despotism his aim ; war was his occupation, pomp 
his relaxation. For him the world was divided into two — his 
will, and those who opposed -it. He acknowledged no duty, he 
respected no right, he flouted at integrity, he despised truth. He 
had no belief in man, no trust in God. In his wants he was ig- 

" Reign of Terror," from '92 to '94, two thousand eight hundred and thiity- 
seven were executed in Paris. 



114 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

noble, in his methods ignorant. He was possessed by the lust of 
isolated, irresponsible, boundless, heartless power, and he believed 
that he could found it with the sword and bind it with lies ; and 
so, ere he began to grow old, what he had founded had already- 
toppled, and what he had bound was loosed. He fell, and as if 
history would register his disgrace with a more instructive em- 
phasis, he fell twice ; and exhausted France, beleaguered by a 
million of armed foes, had to accept the restored imbecile Bour- 
bons. 

But that could not last a generation. For a dozen years the 
military boots of Napoleon had trodden down the crop of aspira- 
tions and thoughts that sprang up with the Revolution, but had 
not killed them. The soldier's heel cannot stamp the life out of 
ideas. They had lived and made roots in silence and secrecy, 
under the ghastly saturnalia of bloody fruitless conquests and 
Imperial tyrannies and ostentations. With the old men had come 
back the old egotisms, the old arrogances, the old inhumanities, 
the old feudal desires. But the old narrow forms had been shat- 
tered, the old growths cut up by the roots, and in their place 
were new wants, new hopes, new convictions. The old men, 
brought back by the enemies of France, stood isolated round the 
old throne. The nation was against them, and more than the 
nation, new truths were against them. Now was manifest the 
virtue of the great bloody revolution. It had engendered. a new- 
mind, broader, deeper, more earnest, higher, stronger, richer than 
the old one ; and the young generation that entered the arena at 
the downfall of Napoleon, enlightened by its fire, exalted by its 
vigor, was the eager heir of the principles, without being contam- 
inated by the errors, of the revolution. The propped throne was 
again upset, and the kingly brother of Louis XVI. was not, like 
him, brought to the block, but driven from France. In the 
" three days of July," 1830, the patchwork of the Holy Alliance 
was by the indignant people torn to shreds. 



LOUIS PHILIPPE. 115 

But a bulky old State, so deeply diseased, in order to be purged 
and righted, needs several crises. Its huge load of malady it can 
only be rid of through successive throes. France had yet to 
carry on her breast for some years, the imposthume of Royalty. 
The " Reign of Terror" was vivid ia the memory of many, and 
its bloody image still rose up minatory whenever men directed 
their thoughts towards practical republicanism. The sins of that 
lurid epoch were not yet expiated. " Vive le Roi !" no longer a 
cordial cry, was still for a season to be the only one legal. Many 
even of the republicans accepted the project of " a thi'one sur- 
rounded by republican institutions." This absurdity had to be 
tried in order to be known. One would suppose, that the shape- 
lessness of such a political monster would have been apparent to 
men's minds without the shock of practical evidence. Louis 
Philippe, the head of the younger branch of the Bourbons, was 
declared King. 

This man's life, previously to his gaining the throne, was one 
long promise ; his life on the throne, was one long lie. The bond 
for " republican institutions" was kept by restricting the right of 
voting at all to the election of the lower Chamber, and limiting 
the number of voters to the two hundred thousand richest men of 
France ; by the creation of a House of Peers appointed by the 
King ; by the most rigid centralization of all legislative and ad- 
ministrative power ; by obstructing and gagging the Press, and 
withholding the right of meeting : by upholding, in so far as he 
could, the despotisms of Europe. Like all men who merely cal- 
culate, Louis Philippe miscalculated. In his own bosom he had 
naught wherewith to measure the moral force of mankind. Sor- 
did and unscrupulous himself, he believed that all men could be 
bought, and that by buying a half million he could control the 
nation, and consolidate the throne for himself and his family. 
Himself and his family, this was his absorbing thought: self- 
aggrandizement was the end, France and Frenchmen were but 



116 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

his means. He was endured for eighteen long years, when 
France, betrayed and corrupted, wrathful at his want of faith, 
disgusted at his baseness, thrust him ignominiously from his per- 
jured throne, giving him the remnant of his contemptible life to 
wear it out in England, where he died as he had lived, his mind 
teeming to the last with intrigues and hypocrisies. 

Now swelled the popular heart. To claim their long seques- 
tered rights, the millions came forth, strong in hope, strong in 
justice, strong with a new intelligence, strong in their forbear- 
ance, their forgiveness. The Republic was declared, and with it 
universal tolerance, and a many-sided freedom. But the goal of 
a stable liberty was not yet attained. The Royalists were routed, 
not annihilated. Too weak for open war, they liad strength for 
secret mischief. The Republicans themselves were not united. 
Fresh convulsions ensanguined the streets of Paris, and embit- 
tered the public mind. Moreover, France had yet another ex- 
piation to make. She had to expiate the sin of pi'ide in Napoleon 
and of the vanity of military glory. His spirit was to give her 
one more scourging. At her call, he came back in the emaciated 
shape of his nephew, elected through universal suffrage by an 
immense majority, the first President of the Republic. 

Louis Bonaparte is cunning, resolute, and unscrupulous, with 
an ordinary intellect and an ordinary heart, and thence without 
principles or convictions. He is an ambitious mediocrity. His 
ambition being of that vulgarest kind, that springs from an intense 
love of self, is unleavened by any enthusiasm or expansiveness. 
He took the oath as President with Empire in his heart. That 
a man of this calibre should in the 19th century be in a position 
even to aspire to be Emperor of France ! To gain the Imperial 
diadem. Napoleon did immense things ; and repeated them, in 
order to wear it for a brief space. The largest thing the nephew 
will do in his lifetime, will be to have aspired to fill his uncle'i 
seat. His dream will be his greatest deed. No spectacle is 






LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY. 117 

more pitiable than that of a small man in a great place. France, 
by offering this spectacle to the world in her first President, is 
expiating Napoleonism. 

Napoleon, Louis Philippe, Louis Bonaparte, — here is an anti- 
climax of rulers. Rulers ! Baffled bunglers. The day for the 
rule of men is passed. Even the strong Napoleon was incapable 
of ruling. The Christian world has outgrown individual rulers; 
ideas, principles now rule. He who in authority is not imbued, 
bemastered by these, is at most an obstruction that temporarily 
angers the current, which, arrested for a time, chafes and eddies, 
and then sweeps into the abyss all that obstructs it. The great 
Bonaparte was so sv/ept down; and the wary Louis Philippe; 
yet now, when the stream is far deeper and stronger, the little 
Bonaparte would thrust forward his petty personalhy to divert its 
flooding course, to make its boiling waters back ! The highest 
that a shrewd judgment could have devised for such as he is, 
had been, to float for a season the apparent helm of the State, on 
the ocean of Democracy. 

For, Democracy, with the broad deep principles which it in- 
volves and unfolds, is henceforward to rule in France. Ideas, 
once rooted in a great people, cannot be uptorn. They grow 
until they embrace with their life every being on the soil. With 
their wide sun-like warmth they grasp the cold egotisms of a de- 
parted power, that vanish before them like icicles before the 
solstitial rays. 

Over the portal of the Palace, where this soulless retrospective 
aspirant would already play the mimic Emperor, are largely 
stamped words that are to him, and to all whq with him or like 
him plot for regal or imperial sway, a terrific writing on the 
wall : Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Before these great words, 
illuminated by a nation's faith, they recoil stricken with dread, 
so committed are they to usurpation, so tethered to fraud and force, 
so blinded by sensuality, so hateful of what is noble and generous. 



118 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

These sublime words, uttered in a mood of prophetic exaltation^ 
proclaim the beauty and unsounded potency of the human heart. 
These beautiful words, the tokens of things more beautiful, re- 
assert the Christian promise of love and peace. They are a rain- 
bow splendor, painted on the evanescent clouds of despair by the 
eternal Sun of hope.* 

* Since this chapter was written has come the coup d'etat of Louis 
Bonaparte. This usurpation seems to dash the hopes and confound the 
estimates herein expressed. If the life of a nation were reckoned by months 
and years and not by decades and centuries, it would do so. A great 
Christian people cannot go back- Principles must triumph over expedients. 
I believe in God, not m the Devil ; in the victory of good over evil. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



A DAY IN PAEIS. 



At six in the morning of May 20th, 1851, through the tall, 
wide chamber-window, that lets in light from ceiling to floor, my 
just-awakened eyes look from my pillow upon the green plane- 
trees that grow in the vacant lot opposite to No. 8 rice du Helder. 
Their large foliage is shaking coolly in the morning breeze. In 
the centre of Paris this tree-decked void is now rare. Favored is 
the Parisian lodger who has such opposite neighbors. They 
adorn my room, and make me free in it : they are at once my 
curtains and my companions. 

The hour of waking is a solemn hour. We have just past 
suddenly from darkness into light, from death to life. Uncon- 
scious babes we come crying into the world, and this matinal re- 
birth is a conscious daily entrance upon a scene of sorrow. It is 
the hour when yesterday is nearest, — yesterday that silently 
wrings the conscience, like the saddened gaze of a dying friend 
whom we have wronged. He is gone forever, and we have not 
been to him what we should have been. But we get hardened to 
these retrospective upbraidings, and thrusting yesterday behind 
us in thought as he is in fact, we tui'n in our bed, — the will not 
being yet enough electrified to lift us out of recumbency into up- 
rightness, — and boldly or timorously, despondently or hopefully 
indifferently or cheerfully, we confront the new day that the sun 
has just brought to us from the mysterious East. For myself, 



120 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPK 

being bent on extra work, action cuts sbort meditation, and I leap 
out of bed into water at 58 Fahrenheit, — a temperature to be 
recommended to those who possess the privilege of beginning 
every day with a cold bath. 

The window unlatched, turning on double hinges like a folding 
door, opens its whole expanse. Fresh and sweet the morning air 
rolls in, untainted up here in the Premier (what we should call 
the third story) by the impurities of the pavement. The cries of 
Paris are in full chorus, the old-clothes men leading the peripatetic 
band. Opposite, a hydrant, — set running for two hours morning, 
noon and evening for domestic service and to gargle the gutters, — 
pours forth a vigorous stream, that seems to delight in its own 
cool gush. 

Issuing through the porte-cochere into the street, a little 

past seven, a few steps bring us to the corner, where we surprise 
the Boulevard des Italiens in complete deshabille. Brooms, dus- 
ters, water-pails are busy ; shop-windows are disgarnished ; cafes 
are turned out of doors to be swept ; the broad sidewalks, the 
afternoon home for swarms of idlers, are unpeopled, save by the 
initiatory providers of the day, the indispensable purveyors, who 
could be as ill spared as the Sun with whom they rise, the bread- 
men and water-men and milk-men. Sad-looking women are on 
their way to the close hives, where a whole day's lung-and-eye- 
wearing stitchwork earns for them a minimum of life's first 
necessaries. An ice-cart, with its circular thatched roof, is at 
Tortoni's. — We have reached the Boulevard Montmartre ; the 
shade on the east side is already welcome. Opposite, a line of 
cabs, mostly of royal blue with white ponies, has taken its stand 
of passive expectancy. Cabmen are favored : they enjoy several 
of the first elements of well-being. They are all day in the open 
air; they are never like other mortals- deserted by hope, upon 
which it may be said they chiefly live ; they frequent the best 
houses, keep good company, and always ride. In return for 



THE CHIFFONIERS. 121 

these blessings, they are contented and civil ; and if, to their 
small perquisite you add a sous or two, they on their part will add 
to their " merci, monsieur," a cordiality and gratitude of tone that 
at once make you the gainer by the gift. 

The daily inaugurating act of each house in Paris is, to purge 
itself of the sweepings and rejected kitchen-fragments of the past 
twenty-four hours, which are thrown out in piles on the edge 
of the sidewalk, where they await the scavenger-carts that come 
along towards eight. But ere these can arrive squalid Poverty, 
pricked out of sleep by Hunger, has started from its filthy couch, 
and dispersed through the streets its tattered hordes. At this mo- 
ment over every pile of garbage bends a hungry proletarian, 
seeking thei'ein his breakfast, and it may be his dinner. Look at 
that man, a deep, wide-mouthed basket strapped to his back. 
With a short stick, hooked at one end, he rakes into the pile, 
drives his hook into rag or paper, delivers what he has pinned 
into the basket, with a rapid jerk of the stick over his shoulder, 
and ferrets again into the foul heap with an eye made keen by 
want. Here is another who has laid down the hook, and with 
his hands is picking out bones. I have seen a man and a dog 
fraternally exploring the same pile. A little further a woman 
is sorting, at the edge of the gutter, the rejected lemon-peels of 
a cafe ; the best of them, — for to poverty there is choice in lowest 
degrees, — she throws into her basket, and will perhaps, out of 
this refuse of an orgie, concoct a savory draft for her sick child. 
These are the chiffoniers, the rag-gatherers. 

Seizing a moment of intermittence in the flow of carts, man- 
drawn as well as horse-drawn, and of lazy-looking cabs, we crosa 
the rue Montmartre, one of the great arteries of Paris. We 
meet squads of laborers in blue blouses, with tools on shoulder, 
going to their work, distant for many of them a league or more 
from their homes in the quartier St. Antoine, — if homes those 
can be called where there is so little of privacy and comfort for 

6 



122 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

the few hours they are in them. On the edge of the sidewalk 
of the Boulevard Bonne NouveJIe three drivei's of public sprink- 
ling-carts are lying, two of them asleep. Through the band of 
the broad-brimmed drab hat of each is a rosebud, shining on th.at 
coarse ground, like Beauty guarding the slumbers of Strength. 

We are now at the Forte St. Denis. The mile that we have 
come on the Boulevard is but a small segment of this longest, 
broadest, freest, most commodious, most lively, most variegated, 
most magnificent of urban avenues in the world. The width of 
this queen of streets is about one hundred and thirty feet, the one 
half in asphalte sidewalks. The Porte St. Denis is a triumphal 
arch seventy feet high, erected more than a century since on the 
foundations of one of the old gates of Paris in honor of the victorious 
campaigns of Louis XIV. On the entablature you read in large 
capitals, Ltjdovico Magno. Monumental inscriptions that are 
not rescripts of the general judgment are speechless. Empha- 
r.ize, begild, emblazon them as you Avill, they have no voice. A 
score of triumphal arches could not make ^reai stick to Louis XIV., 
and this Magno is but an impotent ostentation. 

As we retrace our steps, the Boulevard is fuller. Here a 
(lower-woman has just taken her stand. For a bunch of rose- 
buds she asks ten cents and takes eight, and would probably have 
laken six. Sbe is a type of all traders, great and small, whose 
;dms, means, and whole practice may be codified into one brief 
I recept ; — buy as cheap and sell as dear as you can. — For a 
iiioment our passage is obstructed by a herd of she-asses wbo, 
\>/ith their habitual countenance of grave resignation, are coming 
i;p to the door of an invalid, to whom ass's milk has been pre- 
: cribed by some doubting, dogmatic doctor. The stream of 
ijusy humanity that pours out of the Passage Joiifroy towards the 
!:eart of the city, deepens. Some are reading, as they walk, the 
morning papers, which they have just bought at a news-stall. 
It is nearly eight when we re-enter the gate of the Hotel du Tihre. 



A 



PARIS NEWSPAPERS. 12a 

This is the hour for breakfast and the newspapers, both 

excellent ; for the bread and the butter of Paris are sweet, and 
the newspapers are the most readable in the world. A virtue of 
French nature is, that it is intolerant of a bore. With French- 
men the style enniueux is the only bad style. Their best pens 
work for the newspapers. At this moment a score of the clever- 
est members of the National Assembly are habitual contributors 
to them. Novelists, poets, men of science, critics of high name, 
fill daily their feuilletons. The Paris journals have less quantity 
and finer quality, less matter and more spirit, less about trade and 
more about taste, than those of England or America. 

The French speakers and writers are sounding the depths of 
politics with as much ability as boldness. Their expositions 
throw fresh light on our practice. From several of the most 
marked of the Paris journals of this morning I will take a few 
sentences as samples of the political opinions and hopes of the day. 

The AssembUe Naiionale, — said to be under the influence of 
M. Guizot, — shall speak in a single sentence for all the Royal- 
ists : — " Oui, puisque la Republique est une necessite du temps, 
de la confusion des idees et de I'abaissement des courages, subis- 
sons la avec resignation." The resignation here preached means 
resistance at the first opportunity ; for the Royalists have under- 
standing and will not understand, and they do sincerely believe 
that when they shall have gotten rid of Louis Bonaparte, they 
can permanently put down democracy. As wisely employed 
would they be in trying to put down light. Is the Sun too lu- 
minous for them, they can in no other way escape his rays than 
by retreating fi'om the upper earth into cellars and caverns. 
Can they not bear the fertilizing heat of Democracy, let them 
withdraw into the wildernesses of Asiatic despotism. Europe is 
no place for them. For Europe, under the momentum imparted 
by Christianity, thought, science, instinct, is galloping into de- 
mocracy. 



i:4 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

It might be thought, that the Thiers and the Guizots, and the 
Firoughams, being shrewd, practised men, know better, and are 
1 ypocrites when they denounce Democracy. To account for 
t'leir proceeding, their sincerity need not be questioned. The 
) itellectual vision of such men gets obscured by egotism. Tliey 
commenced as light-dispensing liberals, but having within them 
I 3 cordial love of truth to keep their minds warm and elastic, 
1 i^y have become narrowed and petrified by conceit and ambi- 
I'on. They never were other than political adventurers, self- 
Mseking speculators in the market of Politics. 

The Pays has lately come under the control of Lamartine. 
V/riting to-day on the " Republic which best suits France," he 
combats the project of an Executive named by the Assembly. 
I lere is a brix;k from his pile : — " Une Assemblee executant elle- 
jiieme, sans division des pouvoirs, c'est la confusion des pouvoirs, 
c'est I'irresponsabilite du gouvernment, c'est I'impunite de toutes 
los oppressions centre le peuple, c'est la tyrannic a mille tetes ! 
C'est la Convention ! En voulez vous ?" 

The Republique, in an article headed, " Monarchic ou Republi- 
que," and signed Ad. Gueroult, says : — " II s'agit de choisir 
( ntre le regime paternel de I'Autriche et le gouvernement du 
[-ays par lui-meme ; de retourner au moyen-age, on du con- 
tinuer la Revolution Francaise. Qui pourra douter du resul- 
tat ?" 

The Presse, when its proprietor, Emile de Girardin, puts his 
soul into it as he does just now, is the ablest journal in Christen- 
dom. It glows this morning with power. By its zeal, ability 
and vigor, it is the most efficient expounder of the great demo- 
cratic movement in France and Europe. 

To royalist papers, quarrelling about the elder and younger 
branches of the Bourbons, M. de Girardin says: — " Ne vous 
querellez pas : ni les cadets ni les aines de la maison de Bourbon 
ne reviendront en France, ^ moins qu'il ne leur convienne d'y 



NATIONAL LIBRARY. 125 

revenir sans autre pretension que celle de simples citoyens, 61oc. 
teurs et eligibles. 

"Le droit cornmun est devenu le droit absolu ; il n'admet pas 
d'exceptions. 

" Les Monarchistesont tue la Monarchie en France : les fusio- 
nistes I'ont enterree." 

The limitations of time and space, the ifiexorable condi- 
tions to which he is subjected • by his body and his watch pmch 
the stranger, who wishes to crowd into one Paris day a great 
variety of objects and sensations. He must hurry and be content 
with glimpses. But the deathless mind has no such limitations. 
In a second it sweeps through aeons, or embraces the orbits of si- 
derial systems. Within the compass of a few minutes, while you 
are passing through a Church or a Museum, long chapters of 
thought can write themselves upon the brain. I shall not so 
abuse the indulgence of the reader, who permits me to lead him 
about the Capital of France, as to transcribe the half of this 
writing. Were I to do so, instead of an hour, — he would need a 
day to read "a day in Paris." I spare him. 

Among the cardinal objects of Paris, one of the nearest to our 
lodgings is the National Library, in the rue Richelieu, the largest 
in the world, containing more than a million of volumes. We 
arrive just as the guardians are throwing open its immense 
galleries at ten. 

A vast compact collection of books is a table of contents of the 
world past and present, an epitome of human kind up to the living 
hour. What our predecessors on the globe have thought and 
done is here registered. Manuscripts, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, 
fill any chasms that the briarean printing-press has not yet bridi^jed 
over. From these shelves, men and nations speak and tell their 
story. Around you is a chronicle of your race. Those tribes 
whose nature and speech were too feeble to utter themselves in 
books, have been reported by their stronger kin. 



126 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Books denote intellectual wants satisfied ; they are clasps 
wrought by culture to strengthen itself; they are testimonials of 
national character ; they measure the degree of human vitality in 
a people. Those who have the best books will be found to be at 
the top of the scale, those who have none at the bottom. Recall 
the history of Nations, and survey a present map of the globe. 
Books are grains of spiritual wheat; I mean good books, such as 
have tlie life of fresh honest thought in them. A good library is 
a granary of thoughts ; it stores up aliment for the mind ; it pre- 
serves seed from all ages and countries, and, like the wheat dis- 
covered in the tombs of Egypt, this seed keeps its life for thou- 
sands of years, and if planted fructifies. 

The sowing is here done broadcast, for in going the round of 
these gigantic halls we come upon one where, at a long table, sit 
a multitude of silent readers. Whoever wishes a book writes its 
name on a slip of paper. . This the Librarian hands to one of his 
assistants, who perhaps has to walk through a furlong of books to 
fetch it. The volumes delivered to him the applicant must use 
in the library ; he is not permitted to take them away. 

Like a patriarch amidst his progeny, in the centre of one of 
the great halls, sits in permanent presidence, Voltaire, — Voltaire 
the skeptical, the witty, the versatile, the voluminous. The statue 
is a copy in plaster bronzed of that marvel of portrait-sculpture 
in the Theatre Francais, by Houdon. The aged face sparkles 
with shrewdness. It is the head and face not of the wisest but of 
the most knowing of men. . The countenance is that as of a man 
who had never wept. But in this it wrongs Voltaire : he was not 
without sympathy and kindliness. Nor was he, like Talleyrand, 
a man who believed in nothing but himself, and in his best mo- 
ments doubted even that. Priests, whom his reason unmasked 
and his wit lashed, have done their worst to blacken Voltaire. 
With priests, — who live by creeds and credulity, — the direst 
offence is skepticism. But skepticism is never an original dis- 



PALAIS ROYAL. 1^7 

ease ; it is a reaction against hypocrisy and false belief. Skepti- 
cism is the forerunner of a better belief, for men are by nature 
believers, and doubts are the braces of faith. The man who has 
never doubted is apt to be a shallow believer. To the generation 
that doubted with Voltaire has succeeded a generation, which, 
strengthened by the antecedent purgation through doubt, now be- 
lieves with Beranger and with Lammenais, and with him who is 
the deepest and broadest believer and the most far-seeing man of 
his country and age, with Fourier, who came to harmonize the 
heart of man with the thought of God. 

Turning to the left as we issue into the rue Richelieu, 

through the massive black portal of the Library, we soon cross 
the rue neuve des Petits Champs, and in a few paces come upon 
a short passage, by help of which, after descending a flight of 
stone steps, we suddenly find ourselves under an arched, open 
corridor, that encloses an oblong quadrangle, seven hundred feet 
by three hundred, planted with rows of truncated lime-trees, with 
grass-plots and flower-beds, fountains and statues in the centre. 
All round this immense corridor of two thousand feet are shops, 
and above it is one immense edifice, internally partitioned, hori- 
zontally as well as vertically, into hundreds of tenements, and is 
externally of uniform and florid architecture, with fluted pilasters 
and Corinthian capitals, and elaborate details of ornament. This 
is the Palais Royal, a compendium of the great Capital in 'H^hose 
midst it stands — a mammoth warehouse of the necessaries and 
the luxuries, the solids and the prettinesses, the grossriesses and 
the refinements of civilization. Here you may equip yourself for 
a journey or a ball ; furnish a house or a trunk ; fill your library 
or your larder ; pass from the taciturn reading-room to the chat- 
tering Estaminet, to quicken time's pace by a game of billiards 
with Charles or Romain ; wash down a twenty franc dinner with 
a bottle oiClos Vougeot at the Trois Freres, or a two franc one 
with thin Bordeaux at Richard's hard by ; mount into the alti- 



128 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

tudes of Art with Rachel, or have Levassor help you digest your 
dinner with his side-shaking fun. 

At this hour and season the spring-green leaves of the dwarfed 
lime-trees, which contrast harmoniously with their clean black 
branches, waste on the smooth gravel their rectilinear shade, not 
yet prized by the gossipping nurses, and less by the children that 
run among the legs of elderly loungers, who come to this sprightly 
seclusion, this palatial patch of French rus in urbe, to let indo- 
lence float them an hour or two down Time's lethean stream. 

Besides the wealthy idle, there are in Paris thousands of people 
who, on incomes of from two hundred to five hundred dollars, 
lead a life of absolute unproductiveness. To this class, time is 
all pastime. Their meals are their occupations. For their attic 
lodgings, and other scant indispensables, they grudgingly pay 
their few francs daily. This is all they give ; they are takers, 
not givers. They live on the community ; that is, on what is 
common and open to all, which in Paris is so lively and various, 
that to the vacant it is as good as a fat property. In good weather 
they haunt the Boulevards and public gardens and gratis specta- 
cles ; in bad, the cafes, estaminets, auctions, passages, bazaars. 
Their personal relations are few. The responsibilities fed by the 
affections, the duties of worker, citizen, and friend, from these they 
emancipate themselves as fully as may be, in order to reduce 
existence to the minimum of care. This they call freedom, and 
in sadness we allow, that they are not wholly wrong ; for under 
the civilized regime, such falseness is there in all relations, that 
he who has the fewest is the freest. What a freedom ! obtained 
by personal isolation and moral micrification. 

In five minutes we alight at the Church of iS^ Germain 

VAuxerroiB. This church has a dismal celebrity. From its bel- 
fry it was that on the 23d of August, 1572, was given the signal 
for the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and all through that awful 
night its bell tolled. Was it in penitence, or in triumph ? The 



SERVICES OF A CHURCH. 129 

Romish Church professes to be unchangeable. Are its priests 
then ready to re-commit that crime for which earth has no name ? 
Did the executioners of that sacerdotal sentence afterwards bring 
their doings of that night to the confessional ? Was the fulness 
of the absolution and its unction in proportion to the number of 
victims reported ? Good God ! that these godless impostors 
should still thrive ! that men who have had opportunities and 
culture, men even of manly natures, should still submit them- 
selves, their feelings and their acts, to the revision of this histri- 
onic corporation ! — But we will not stop longer on the threshold, 
to be embittered by the terrific retrospection, and the angry 
thoughts it awakens. 

Within, two funeral services are going on ; one in the middle 
of the church for a child, the other in a side chapel for an adult, 
and, from the tranquil acquiescent mien of the mourners, appa- 
rently, aged person. But from the group in the centre are heard 
the sobs of that sharp grief which cuts into the heart of the mother, 
and makes there a wound that never fully heals. Violence has 
been done, hence life-quaking sorrow ; for early death, or death 
from any cause but decay, is against the normal law of nature. 
The painless death of the aged from exhaustion is the only natu- 
ral death — painless to the departed, and painless, though sad, to 
the survivors. 

In another recess an elderly priest is teaching the catechism to 
a large class of boys. French children in the earliest years are 
mostly not beautiful ; they want the unconscious, untainted, self- 
less look, which, with a rosy transparent plumpness, makes cher- 
ubs of their little neighbors across the Channel ; but among these 
boys, who were from ten to fourteen, there was much beauty. 
As we paused for a moment, the priest asked one of them to ex- 
plain tjie mystery of the incarnation ! The boy made answer 
according to the words of the book. 

In a populous city like Paris, where there are few churches, 

6* 



130 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

and where so many thousands seldom visit them, except for the 
great sacraments, it were quite possible to hit upon an hour when, 
besides a funeral, there should be a marriage and a christening. 
As we had not this fortune, I almost regretted not to possess the 
gift that some reporters have, of eking out with inventions the 
short-comings of reality. Yet it was fitting that for this church, 
the image of death should stand alone in the memory, 

Coming out, we front the east facade of the Louvre, and 

on the globe we could not stand on a spot from which to behold a 
grander architectural mass. A colonnade nearly two hundred 
yards long, of coupled Corinthian columns, each one thirty-eight 
feet high, supported on a plain basement thirty feet high, with a 
gallery behind pierced with windows and enriched with pilasters 
and festoons. But here, as in all great architectural creations, 
the enduring grandeur and beauty spring from the proportions. 
Were the basement a few feet lower, or the pairs of columns fur- 
ther apart, or the entablature less massive, or the central and 
lateral projections more prominent, the harmony would be broken, 
and this unique facade would have missed much of its renown. 
Possibly some of the details might be improved. The arching of 
the windows in the basement, the want of elevation in those above, 
the unmeaningness of the festoons over each upper window, if 
these are defects, — which I hardly presume to say they are, — 
they are merged in the splendor of effect produced by excellence 
of proportion among such gigantic constituents. 

Those great Greeks ! what a plastic genius, what a clear soul 
for beauty, what an infallible inward sense of form they had 
Look at a Corinthian column, with its wrought base, its liglit 
fluted shaft, springing with a graceful strength up to its acanthine 
capital, like an elastic Flora bearing a basket of flowers above her 
head, — what a creation it is ! Imperishable from its beauty, it is 
an ornament, to the earth forever. 

The Quays are one of the great features of Paris. Herein 



NOTRE DAME. 131 

slie high overrides her mightier English rival. Ten miles of 
quay, — five on each side of the river, — of from fifty to eighty feet 
wide, paved, lighted, fenced by stone balustrades, one endless 
terrace overlooking the Seine, the one side communicating with 
the other by a dozen bridges, — it is a magnificence traversing the 
city, such as no other city in the world can show. 

Ascending the quays on the right bank of the river, we cross 
the Po7it Neiif to the island, where is the original city, the pri- 
mary centre, round which by successive radiations has grown in 
the course of more than a dozen centuries, this vast metropolis. 
Passing by the Palais de Justice, we alight in front of the huge 
truncated towers of Notre Dame, the foundations of which were 
laid more than eight hundred years ago. 

Seldom is there in architecture a transmission of life from part 
to part, a quick circulation of vitality through the members, melt- 
ing them into a whole.- The great law of unity, predominant and 
transparent in every work of Nature, and therefore imperative in 
Art, is from weakness seldom fulfilled in its severity. Now the 
imposing front of the famous old Cathedral of Notre Dame, is not 
enough penetrated by this unifying essence. The parts lie one 
above the other strata-wise. It cannot be called heavy, yet it 
presses too much on the earth. The best architecture is always 
buoyant, lifting itself up with an intrinsic nervousness, a self- 
sustainment, infused by beauty ; for beauty has the virtue to 
spiritualize the bulkiest mass. 

And the exterior is the best of it. The interior is in its ensemble 
less inspired. Those stout columns, besides being not Gothic, are 
grossly prosaic. Instead of mounting up with alacrity to meet the 
down-stooped roof, and carrying it without sign of effort, they look 
overladen, and as though they complained of their task. But here 
in the transepts is a compensating pomp, two circular painted 
windows, opposite the one to the other, and each fifty feet in diam- 
eter. They are like the magnification of a brilliant kaleidoscope. 



182 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPK 

These Gothic cathedrals are sublime efforts made in the middle 
ages, to embrace God with the uplifted arms of mighty Archi- 
tecture. 

Crossing over to the left bank of the river, we traverse 

part of the quartier Latin to reach the Luxembourg. We have 
time but for a short turn in its spacious, shady, hospitable garden, 
from which we hasten up to the gallery of living French painters. 

With ever new zest one re-beholds that great picture of Couture, 
Les Romains de la Decadence. A capital excellence of this mas- 
terpiece is, that it illustrates and demonstrates the limitation of 
the Arts. Each art has its domain within which it is sovereign, 
beyond which it is uncrowned. Never did artist plant himself 
more firmly in the very centre of his rightful dominion than does 
Couture in this picture. Written poetry, sculpture, music, could 
not with their utmost attainment, singly or united, impress upon 
the mind an image of the decline of Rome, so vivid, so full, so 
convincing, as is here done on canvass in a single view. — A Ro- 
man orgie, in a lofty banquet-hall of cool Grecian architecture ; 
men and women reclining, standing, sitting, some with goblets in 
hand ; and over all the languor of an irremediable satiety. In 
that large, graceful, recumbent, central, female figure, what 
fallen majesty, what spent power, what a gigantic lassitude ! in 
those big dark orbs what a depth of fixed sadness ! Never more 
can that countenance beam with joy. Here a male figure has 
climbed up to a niche and offers wine to a statue ; what a fine 
stroke of Art to express utter satiation. On the opposite side, a 
woman is tearing her hair, as if suddenly seized with madness, 
and nobody heeds her. In the distant background, a group are 
tearing one another. Here there is a show of dalliance, but lack- 
ing the sting of passion. In the love there is no fire, no flavor in 
the wine, nor in the grapes any slaking coolness. Palate and 
feeling, body and soul, all is blase, consumed by a heat which 
warms not. Those two spectators in the corner, standing indig- 



CHRISTIANITY DESTROYS DESPOTISM. 188 

nant, like Brutus and Cassius come back, they frown in vain. 
Mighty Rome is fallen forever. The Latin civilization is drained 
to the bottom, and here are the putrid lees. It had not the soul 
of the highest life. The spiritual element, the higher human, 
the vivacious and immortal, mingled in it too feebly to project it 
towards an indefinite progression. Its great animal intellectual 
vigor, has compassed the widest orbit yet permitted to a nation. 
Force has run its full circle, beginning in rude strength, and end- 
ing, naturally, in voluptuousness. 

But already, as Rome passed her zenith, in the East had been 
laid the foundations of a power, on whose immeasurable path was 
to be borne, not a nation, but a host of nations, and not nations 
merely, but better than nations, Man. Civilized Paganism was 
the consecration of the State ; Christianity is the consecration of 
man. In Greece and Rome man was subordinated to the State ; 
the more the law of Christ is fulfilled, the more the State is sub- 
ordinated to man. The greater the concentration and exercise 
of power in the State, the smaller is man. When the State is all 
and man nothing, as under Despotism, the instrument rules its 
maker, and belittles him ; for the State is of man, and man is of 
God. When Christianity grows strong, it strengthens man, and 
melts the bonds of the State. The freest nation must be the most 
Christian. The most unchristian power in Christendom is the 
Papacy. 

The thoughts kindled by this great picture carry us away from 
the picture itself. Considering the almost unique felicity of the 
subject, the breadth of its purport, the intellectual beauty of its 
composition, the masterly richness of the execution, the higlj un- 
conscious moral there is in it, this picture should rank as one of 
the greatest works of art in Europe. It is a canvas-compendium 
of Roman history. Study it, and save yourself the trouble of 
reading Gibbon. 

The sun has passed the meridian, and will soon be hur- 



1S4 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

rying away from us : we must hasten after him. — Coachman, 
drive as fast as safety and the police will let you. From the nar- 
row, damp streets of this side the river, one issues upon the quays 
with a feelinor of disenthralment. Turning to the left we descend 
the left bank. In view on the opposite shore are, the Louvre, its 
long gallery, the Palace, the garden of the Tuileries. On this 
side we drive along, first the learned quays Malaquais and Vol- 
taire, with their book-stalls and print-shops, and the house where 
Voltaire died, then the Quay D'Orsay, with its imposing edifices 
and patrician tranquillity. Now are we crossing the Pont de la 
Concorde, from which the eye ranges up the river to be stopped 
two miles off by the towers of Notre Dame, and down, by distant 
foliage, then across to the Place de la Concorde, with its neigh- 
boring grandeurs. Flanked on the right by the massy foliage of 
the Tuileries, and on the left by Elyseean vistas under broken 
shade ; with its two pompous fountains spouting their large ex- 
panse of clear, noisy water, between them the Obelisk of Luxor, 
looking in its solemn singleness like a mourner at a wedding ; 
with its gay, bronze-gilt lamp-columns and bold statuary and in- 
cessant roll and glitter of carriages, and its magnificent environ- 
ment, the Place de la Concorde, on every sunny day like this, 
wears a festal air. Now we are close upon the Madeleine, belted 
by more than fifty Corinthian columns, each one fifty feet high. 
For months this architectural paragon has been to me a daily joy ; 
for, not a day but I pass it more than once, and never without 
fresh admiration and thankfulness. I will presume upon the 
privilege of having gazed at it many hundred times to find one 
fault in it. The pediment is not purely Grecian, but somewhat 
Roman, that is, a little too high. Were there a mile up the Bou- 
levards a large specimen of pure Gothic, what termini there were 
to the gayest walk in Europe. 

We reach the rue du Helder at one, most grateful for an hour's 



i 



THE PHALANSTERIANS. 136 

rest, which is made more refreshing by help of a mutton-chop and 
French roll for lunch. 

It is half-past two when I find myself again on the other 

side of the river, and alighting at the corner of the Quay Vol- 
taire, I walk into the rue de Beaune. No. 2 is the first gate-way 
on the right, entering the which I cross a broad court, ascend a 
few steps to the large open portal, turn to the right, and having 
passed through two doors in succession, have before me in a spa- 
cious, shelf-furnished room, several clerks, silently at work be- 
hind the wire netting that in French offices separates the visitor 
from the inmates. Invading this precinct, with interchange of 
salutation with the occupants, I issue out at ^the opposite angle, 
and traversing a short, dark passage, enter by a small door an- 
other capacious room with tall windows to the ground looking on 
a garden. At an enormous oval table in the middle of the room, 
covered with green baize and bestrown with newspapers, two 
bearded men are writing, and another is reading a journal, a sofa 
on one side is possessed in its full length by a recumbent fourth, 
while two or three others, seated before the coal embers of the 
large fire-place, are smoking short clay pipes. Conversation is 
fitful, now and then rising for a few moments into earnest con- 
tinuity. This is the sanctum of the writers for the Democracie 
Pacifique, and the rendezvous of the Phalansterians. On the 
mantel-piece is a bust of Fourier. 

These men believe in a new social order, to be founded on ab- 
solute justice ; and they have dedicated themselves to the expo- 
sition of the laws whereby it is to be organized. Convictions of 
the present possibility of a more human and a more divine con- 
dition for man, contrasted with which the best he has yet had is 
but vanity and blight, these are the staple of their life. They 
live in a future, built of ideas originated by thoughtful, sympa- 
thizing genius. They themselves are not raised above their fel- 
lows by brilliancy of parts or purity of conduct ; their distinction 



186 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPR 

is, that, whether by the fortune of association, or by intellec- 
tual sympathy, or by aesthetic susceptibility, they have accept- 
ed the discoveries of Fourier. Providence provides that the 
good seed which she generates shall some of it light on soil 
where it can grow and fructify. They are not high on the so- 
cial scale, but from the eminence of new truth they look calmly 
down upon the turmoil which men now call society. In the 
world's goods they are poor, but the incommensurable wealth of 
world-moulding ideas is theirs ; and thus enriched, they already 
enjoy an inward well-being, which to flaunting grandees and be- 
dizened officials, who think they despise them, were an incredible 
Utopia. 

The bust of Fourier is unhappily not faithful. The artist has 
had the imbecile arrogance to alter God's work : he thought to 
improve it ! He has " idealized" by squaring, enlarging, em- 
boldening it ; that is, he has annihilated Fourier, and instead of 
a transcript from the original head, he has given us a big, hol- 
low, no-head. But the disciples of Fourier possess a cast from 
his cranium after death. This indicates a nature more distin- 
guished for the completeness and harmony of its organization, 
than for any one-sided intellectual or affective superiority. I 
gazed at it as I had at his simple tomb in the cemetery of Mont- 
martre, with deep emotion ; for to this man I acknowledge my- 
self to be under unspeakable obligations. He has ratified and 
enlightened my best intuitions ; he has intellectualized my as- 
pirations into scientific truths. His discoveries and deductions 
are new revelations of the greatness and goodness of God, and 
of the cognate power and splendor of man. " Les attractions 
Bont proportionelles aux destinees ;" — " La S6rie distribue les har- 
monies."* These two sublime formulas, into which Fourier has 
condensed the essence of his doctrine, and which prefigure the 

* Attractions are proportionate to destinies ; — the Series distributes the 
barmouies. 



THE TUILERIES GARDENS. 187 

coming glorified condition of humanity, are as yet to the mul- 
titude cabalistic and enigmatical, and to the Pharisees what were, 
and continue to be to them the words of Jesus, " Love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself," — " Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is 
in Heaven is perfect ;" the which sublime exhortations are still 
an ideal goal, shining with a star-like brilliancy, and a star-like 
remoteness, through the night of human enmities and imperfec- 
tions. The formulas of Fourier are the vehicle wherein this 
high ideal shall descend to the earth, and become the reality of 
daily life. 

Re-crossing the Seine by the Pont National, I enter the 

Tuileries Gardens. Trees and turf are freshly robed in the 
clear, clean verdure of spring. On coming into these gardens 
one gains a sense of freedom. The sudden salutation of Nature 
in mid-urban closeness were enough for this, and Ai't enlarges 
the sensation by beautifying the welcome of Nature with her 
own graceful courtesy. With the leaves and flower-buds chil- 
dren have come back. The broad alley on the rue Rivoli is 
glittering with these soul-buds, and through the joyous, busy 
swarm one moves slowly, imbibing spiritual peace from celestial 
emanations. 

Quitting the Garden by the gate opposite the arch-flanked rue 
Castiliogne, in five minutes I am in the rue Duphot, which ascends 
from that of St. Honore to the Boulevard des Capucines. At No. 
12 I pass under a solid gateway over which is inscribed, Ecole 
d' Equitation, where besides the best schooling in horsemanship in 
a spacious covei-ed quadrangle, good well-equipt saddle-horses 
are to be had by the month or day. In a few minutes I have 
under me a clean-limbed English blood mare, in full trot up the 
broad avenue of the Champs Elysees. A ride on a mettled horse 
who enjoys his own springy motion, is a cure for many of the 
minor ills of life. 

The sight cannot escape the gigantic Triumphal Arch which 



138 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

crowns the eminence at the head of this nohle avenue, — by far 
the most massive specimen in Europe of a vain and arrogant 
class of edifice, and a sample of the handiwork of Napoleon, who 
was so great in the smaller, the material sublime, and so small 
in the greater, the moral sublime. Two centuries hence this 
monument of military achievements will by the, thoughtful of 
that period be interpreted as a naif record, — elaborately chiselled 
upon the tablet of History by the " Great Captain of the age," — 
of the semi-barbarism of the nineteenth century, whereof him- 
self was the most shining exemplification. 

Leaving this monster* on the right, I join the current which, 
on the cushioned seats of coach or saddle, sets at this hour up 
the avenue of St. Cloud towards the Bois de Boulogne. This 
sandy area, about seven miles in circuit, covered for the most 
part by a stunted growth, chiefly of oaks and birch, is inter- 
sected throughout by numerous straight avenues that run across 
from edge to edge and cut one another at all angles. There is 
but one meandering path, running through the middle, and much 
frequented by equestrians. This is a pleasure-ground for that 
portion of Parisian idlers who can afford the daily luxury of 
horses. On Sundays all the hackney-carriages of Paris are in 
request to transport thither a fraction of the Bourgeoisie. But 
even hacks are beyond the reach of the mechanical and other 
hard-working classes. Those on whose broad, steadfast labor 
Society rests as her foundation, she dooms to exclusion even from 
the meagre relaxations which in her penury she doles out. In 
her diabolic perversity she honors most the least creative, those 
who consume much and produce nothing. 

~ Here comes, on a stout sleek horse, a stout well-tailored man, 
■with groom to match. His square fleshy face is sallow, his eye 
egotistic and unhappy. He looks like a rich sensualist hopelessly 

* It cost two millions of dollars. For his own magnification, the Corsi- 
can spent the gold of Frenchmen as lightly as their blood. 



WOMEN ON HORSEBACK. 139 

riding for an appetite. In passing, he scans me, as thougn by 
my look he would measure my worldly importance. In a but- 
ton-hole of his coat he has a red ribbon, and on his overcoat the 
same. Medals round the necks of children are hateful to me. 
They are mostly a falsehood, as not expressing the absolute rela- 
tive merits of the wearers to their mates. They are often a tes- 
timonial of only apparent excellence ; they are always a bait to 
draw vanity to the surface, and are therefore stimulants of a mor- 
bid emulation. They demoralize the child. On an adult they 
are disgusting, a stain on his manhood, a badge of his subjugation. 
A man to have a bit of ribbon pinned to his breast by another 
man, in token of superiority over his fellows ! The degradation 
is the deeper for its unconsciousness. The tone of manliness is 
so chronically lowered on the Continent of Europe by the habit 
of submission to arbitrary state-power, that men of honorable na- 
ture are insensible to the dishonor that intrinsically attaches to 
the wearing of these " decorations," of which they therefore make 
a peacock-like parade. 

The joyous music of young women's laughter, accompanying the 
martial tramp of numerous strong hoofs in quick gallop, sounds 
close through the leaves, and I have barely time to yield the 
better half of the road,when two English girls, superbly mounted, 
spring by at an Amazonian speed. Their fun seems to be to 
distance their cavaliers, who strain after them in loud glee. " I 
say, Harry," cries one of these, evidently enjoying the sport al- 
most as much as a fox-chase, *' this is devilish hard work." 
Four women out of five that one meets on horseback are in swift 
gallop. Our masculine imaginations make the steed look proud 
of his beautiful burthen ; but for all that, I pity a woman's horse 

Adopting the feminine pace, from the centre of the wood 1 
reach the Boulevards in thirty minutes. 

It is past five when, on my way homeward from the 

stable, I cross the Place Vendome, where is another of Napo- 



140 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

leon's military monuments, the column made of brass cannon 
taken from the Austrians and Russians in 1805, surmounted by 
a colossal statue of the Imperial Artilleryman. This column, 
like most of its author's works, is an imitation of a bad model. 
In keeping with its borrowed form, the inscription on the base, 
telling why it was erected, is in Latin. This latinity serves a 
purpose ; for the heartiest admirers of the monument being the 
ignorant, the unknown tongue, while it sharpens their sense of 
their own ignorance, will quicken their admiration ; and thus, 
Napoleon is elevated in proportion to their abasement, — which is 
just as it should be. 

Even the cultivated are somewhat imposed upon by Greek or 
Latin words. These have a big oracular look. The imagina- 
tion is aroused by the sight of them ere they have spoken. A 
voice sounding across twenty centuries must be freighted with 
import. Thus we are apt to infuse into a quotation from those 
languages a deeper meaning than it ever had ; partly too because, 
no one ever thoroughly understanding a language that he has not 
learnt through the ear as well as the eye, the imagination, with 
its practised self-confidence, fills up the void. 

Nothing exhibits more flagrantly the injustice inherent in 

civilization than the inequality among the dinners served up to 
her children ; and Paris, by the superlative degree to which she 
stretches this inequality, deserves the title she assumes of being 
the capital of the civilized world. Out of her million of inhabi- 
tants, more than half can hardly be said to dine at all. In their 
dark, unfurnished, crowded, infectious lodgings, or, far away 
from these wretched homes, resting at noon from work, the me- 
chanic and day-laborer appease the gross cravings of hunger 
with a stinted portion of the plainest, and often unwholesome, 
innutritious, refuse food. The solace, physical and moral, of a 
leisurely, abundant repast, — due to every man by Nature, and 
which Nature is willing and anxious to pay, — this they never 



DINERS. 141 

have. When two out of three of all who are buried in Paris 
are so at public cost, and one third die in the hospitals, no especial 
skill in statistical arithmetic is needed to estimate, without other 
data, how many of the living daily uphold life by what may be 
called a dinner ; that is a wholesome, sufficing meal. When I 
put down the dinnerless at six hundred thousand, I am within 
bounds ; and scores of thousands among these would on many 
days utter in vain the prayer, " Give us this day our daily bread." 

Of the remaining four hundred thousand, two consist of small 
shop-keepers, best-paid mechanics, clerks at low salaries, the in- 
ferior class of artists, and others, who although they sit down 
with a table-cloth, and even napkins, and wine (at 8 cents a 
bottle), live in the daily habit, — without the virtue, — of obedience 
to the hygienic prescription of rising from dinner with an appetite. 

To make up the million there are two hundred thousand left, 
comprising capitalists who live on their incomes, computed to be 
about seven per cent, of the whole population of Paris, the weal- 
thier professional and litea'ary men and artists, the upper Bour- 
geoisie, bankers, traders and large shop-keepers, and the higher 
office-holders. These are the true diners, the elect (epicureanly 
speaking), for whom capons were discovered and riz de veau a la 
jinanciere, for whom turbot and oysters of Ostend are brought in 
ice from the sea, and truffles from the south, and asparagus and 
strawberries are forced, and Cliamlertin and Lafitte exhale their 
bouquet, — men for whom cooks are educated and sauces invented, 
whose forks come from Potosi and their napkins from Silesia, 
men who, in our present up-side-down world, stand on that im- 
measurable height up to which their brother-men gaze with an 
intensely human longing, and an intensely unchristian sensa- 
tion, — that predominating eminence, where they are so far above 
their fellows and the low cares of bread-nourished life, that, with- 
out fear of to-morrow, they can to-day spend five to ten francs, 
and some even twenty or fifty, for a dinner. 



142 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

To these may be added forty or fifty thousand strangers, perma. 
nent and transient ; and these are a main stay of the Restaurants. 

Turning to the left as I issue out of the rue du Helder towards 
six, and walking up the Boulevard des Italiens a few hundred 
yards, I am surrounded by some of the best Restaurants of Paris, 
the Cafe de Paris, the Maison Doree, the Cafe Riche, and on the 
other side, the Cafe Anglais. At any one of these, at any hour, 
may be had an impromptu dinner of succulent substantials or of 
wholesome delicacies, the first course of which will be served, to 
a man in a hungry hurry, by the time that he has chosen his 
wine. To-day I disregard their solicitations, and entering the 
rue Richelieu pass under the gateway of No. 112, ascend a short 
broad stone stairway, and opening a door' with the inscription 
Cercle de la Conversation, find myself in the apartment that 
twenty years ago was widely known as the Frascati gambling- 
rooms, now occupied by a club, many of whose members are 
men of letters and artists. Here every day at six a table is laid 
for twelve or fourteen at three francs and a half, a good French 
bourgeois dinner. Here at a private concert, opened by a witty 
poem from the spirituel Mery, I have heard Godefroi on the harp, 
Laconibe on the piano, and Hermann on the violin. 

This Club deserves its name, being the only one in Paris where 
there is enough of geniality and of intellectual sociability to create 
the need of cultivated conversation. In tgngue-skirniishing, as in 
that on the field, the French are rapid and brilliant. Their minds 
lie near the surface ; they dart in and out with a sparkling agility 
that quickens the wits of all listeners. Just after Lamartine had 
assumed the control of the journal, Le Pays, I asked at dinner a 
Legitimist opposite (the Legitimists all hate Lamartine)* " Est ce 
que Monsieur Lamartine a achete Le Pays .?" Without the 

* " Has M. Lamartine bought the Pays ?" — " No, the Pays has bought 
M. Lamartine." — " Capefigue has a great depth of learning." — " Youmeaa 
thickness." 



VAlflTY OF l''RENCimEN. 14$ 

pause of a semi-colon he answered, " Non, c'est Le Pays qui a 
achete M. Lamartine." Some one saying of Capejigue, a second- 
rate historical and political writer, that he had " une grande pro- 
fondeur de connaissance." — " Vous voulez dire epaisseur," re- 
joined the same gentleman. I have here heard a French poet 
conclude a graphic picture of the opening of the battle of Trafal- 
gar by declaring that the signal there thrown out by Nelson, — 
" England expects every man to do his duty," — was one of the 
most sublime incidents in History. I have heard the military in- 
fallibility of Napoleon questioned and his tactics criticized, and 
the pre-eminence of Shakspeare acknowledged. The French 
have expanded out of their old self-sufficiency ; within fifty years 
they have learnt much from their neighbors and from adversity j 
from the latter they are just now learning very fast. 

Frenchmen are charged with vanity ; themselves hardly deny 
the charge. But this is one cause of their cheerfulness, and of . 
their conversational vivacity ; for vanity is a great weaver of 
cords of connection, which, if not the strongest, are for that the 
more numerous, and being short and taught, wonderfully enliven 
superficial personal relations. A man who wishes to attract your 
regards upon himself, will try to please. That vanity does not 
necessarily make a man agreeable, and is often a large ingre- 
dient in a thoroughly selfish character, we need not go to France 
to learn. The impulse whereof it is the overgrown fruit, has no 
root in the heart, it is purely self-seeking ; nevertheless, in the 
composite movement of associated humanity, it plays a functional 
part To judge of the heart of a Frenchman, or other man, Paris 
is not a fair place, for nowhere are men more dwarfed by the 
pressure of the heartless motto of civilized life — " Every man for 
himself, and God' for us all." This is another testimony in favor 
of the claim of Paris to be the capital of civilization. 

It is not far from eight, when, dinner being some time over, I 
break off from a pleasant after-chat, and take leave of the Club. 



144 SCENES AND THOUGHTS EST EUROPE. 

* I was introduced to this Club by my friend Henry S. 

Sanford, Secretary of the United Slates Legation in Paris. An ' 
act of personal kindness I should not thus publish, were not so 
many of his countrymen under like obligations to Mr. Sanford, 
that an acknowledgment of them here seems not unbecoming, and 
will, I am sure, be acceptable to hundreds of Americans, who in 
the past three or four years have profited by his kindly ser- 
vices. 

And here let me add a few words in regard to what is expected 
of American Legations in Europe. 

Some citizens of the United States suppose, that their citizen- 
ship entitles them in Europe to the acquaintance and attention of 
the United States envoys. This is a mistake. A diplomatic agent 
'is a public, not a private servant. So long as the American 
traveller has no complaint against the public authorities for ill- 
usage (and even then in most cases the Consul is the proper func- 
tionary of whom to seek redress), his claim upon the Envoy has 
no stronger basis than that upon other American residents in 
foreign capitals. Equally with the private resident, the Envoy 
retains the right of expanding or contracting his circle of ac- 
quaintance, of choosing his companions, according to his taste or 
his calculations. If, through inclination or policy, he " entertains," 
from the greater facility of obtaining introduction to a public than 
to a private person, a large number of his countrymen will be his 
guests. But his hospitality lies within the bounds of his reserved 
private domain. Whether he lives " like a hermit," or " like a 
prince," is of no concern to any but the small circle to whom the 
closeness or the openness of his house, is a private loss or a pri- 
vate profit. Princely living was wisely not included in the dip- 
lomatic duties of American ministers, by those who established 

* These remarks on American Legations, commenced as a note, have 
stretched so much beyond the expected length, that I have thought it best 
to include them in the text. 



EUROPEAN ENVOYS IN AMERICA. 146 

their salaries, and Americans have, as such, no claims on them 
for balls, dinners, or cards. 

What they have a right to expect from them is, that not only 
should they in their official business, which is little and intermit- 
tent, maintain the rights and interests of the United States, — and 
this they do ; but that also in their daily bearing, their habits, 
tone, conversation, that is, in their unofficial conduct, which is 
much and not intermittent, they should uphold the principles to 
which the United States owe their birth, being, and matchless 
welfare, the principles of political justice, of civic equality, of 
republican freedom, — and this they do not. 

European diplomatic agents in America set an example, which 
American diplomatic agents in Europe should follow. With 
rarely an exception, the representatives of foreign governments 
resident in this country, are unanimous in their condemnation of 
our institutions, and of all our democratic principles and pro- 
cesses. These feelings of distaste and of oppugnancy to democ- 
racy are not concealed : they need not be. These gentlemen 
represent monarchies and despotisms : their governments are con- 
ducted on principles directly hostile to those which rule us. In 
their opinions, conversation, habits, they manifest the hostility. 
Hereby their official relations are in no manner obstructed or em- 
bittered. They are true to their masters : we acknowledge and 
respect their right to be so. They keep themselves as European 
and aristocratic as they can ; nobody objects or takes offence. 

Now on the contrary, the American diplomatic agent in 
Europe, instead of keeping American and republican, is no sooner 
installed, but he sets about to Europeanize and aristocratizc him- 
self as much as he can. He bedaubs his carriage with armorial 
bearings (if not inherited, improvised) ; claps livery on his ser- 
vants; begilds his outside often with more than the official lace ;* 

* A court-dress with modest gold-lace trimmings, is prescribed by our 
Government. This should be done away with, as being at war with our 

7 



146 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EITROPE. 

finds as many virtues as possible in the royal family where he is 
accredited ; submits to condescensions from his or her Majesty, 
or Royal Highness, and even feels himself thereby elevated ; 
affects titled society, and with self-gratulation takes the place 
which his credentials provide for him as a member of the profli- 
gate, arrogant, brazen, soulless, godless circle that surrounds 
every throne in Europe. But for all his obsequiousness, he and 
his are admitted no further than the outer halls of this Temple of 
Belial. Aristocracy is always exclusive, scornful, relentless, as 
close as freemasonry ; and to obtain from it the grasp of fellow 
ship, one must have other credentials than those received fronr. 
the President of a Democracy. 

How different, and how much more consistent, is the bearing 
of a European envoy. He makes no secret of being bored by 
people and things, public and private, at Washington. ■ So far 
from seeking virtues in the Executive body, he scans it with 
satirical malice ; he picks as many holes as he can in the char- 
acter and intellect of our "great men ;" he quizzes our fashion j 
he sneers at our pretension ; and when he quits us, he rejoices in 
his departure as the end of an exile. The offspring of Monarchy 
and Aristocracy, he detests our politics and hates our people. 

The offspring of Democracy, if true in like manner to his birth 
and breeding, should regard every Christian king as an usurper, 
every hereditary privilege as a robbery ; and in the presence of 
royalty and nobility, bedizened in court-tinsel, should feel his 
moral sense offended, just as is the immoral sense of the diplo- 
matic scion of nobility in presence of the sovereign people in 
America. The citizen of the United States who has not some- 
thing of this feeling, is a spurious offspring of the Republic. 
However he may vaunt his republican home, he has not a dis- 
cerning, logical appreciation of the blessings he is born to, and is 

universal usage in civil costume. Our Legations should be ordered to ap. 
pear at foreign courts in plain ungilded republican dress. 



AMERICAN ENVOYS IN EUROPE. 147 

not fit fully to represent this great self-govei*ning country in 
prince'ridden Europe. Too many of our envoys have been thus 
disqualified • and from the commanding position we have now 
reached as the one great Democracy in the world, hostilely ar- 
rayed (in sentiment at least) against the despotisms of Europe, — 
and the object of their fears, their machinations, their hate, — this 
disqualification is become the more discreditable to us, and the 
more hurtful to our true interests. ThQ old and the new are face 
to face in deadly defiance. We are the new, and whoever repre- 
sents us in old Europe, should fully feel the nature and signifi- 
cance of this antagonism, and act throughout accordingly. 

Instead of living the simple, manly life of hearty republicans, 
encompassed but not defiled, by aristocratic carnalities ; seeking 
intercourse with those who are at once the ornaments and pillars 
of a country and the best bonds between their own and other 
lands, the men of science and culture, and large sympathies ; 
breathing encouragement or consolation into the hearts of the 
bleeding workers for truth and humanity ; instead of this honora- 
ble, appropriate, elevated part, which courts by its very heartiness 
the representatives of the only great Republic in the world, too 
many American legations are false to their high mission, and, 
by adopting the thoughts and associations of the implacable foes 
of freedom, lower the American name in Europe. Aping and 
otherwise flattering haughty aristocrats, who patronize and sneer 
at them, and but for the gigantic uplifted arm of Democracy be- 
hind, would despise them, they eagerly rush, with the shallow 
and the idle, into the whirl of oligarchic fashion, and there circle 
round on the outskirts of the dance of frivolity and vanity, until 
too soon a change of administration sounds the knell of their re- 
call ; when, sighing over the loss of so many Lords, Counts, and 
Barons, with whom they have sipped champagne and nibbled 
boned turkey, and sighing still deeper to think, that in exchaiige 
for these beribboned and betitled Dons, their associates hencclbrth 



148 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

are to be militia Colonels and county court Judges, they sadly re- 
turn home to hog and homony, or pork and molasses. 

Leaving the Club,* I drive far up the Boulevard Poissonni ere, 
and then turning into a street to the right soon alight at a Cafe. 
To one familiar with Cafes on the Boulevards, the plainness of 
furniture is all that is at first noticeable. There is the usual 
sprinkling of small tables, brilliant gas-light, and on one side of a 
long room, the raised desk where pi'esides the universal feminine 
Divinity, who fingers the cash and deals out sugar and orders. But 
on calling for beer and segars, to pay for entrance, we find cut on 
the glasses a red triangle, emblematic of the tripple-phrased re- 
publican device. It is a cheap democratic Cafe where mechanics 
and laborers meet in the ev'ening for dominos and gossip, and 
where for a kw sous they get a glass of wine or beer with tobacco. 
This is one of the salons of the poor. There are to-day not 
many visitors, and so after putting into the box, modestly pre- 
sented by the waiter, a small contribution for imprisoned and 
exiled democrats, my companion and I withdraw. — In the marais, 
a quarter in the direction of the Faubourg St. Antoine, we alight 
at another. Here in one large hall are ten billiard tables, nearly 
all occupied. The players are probably small clerks, journey- 
men-tailors, and others, whose sedentary vocations earning for 
them from three to five francs a day, they come here to buy an 
hour's exercise with that portion of their incomes which continen- 
tal people, rich and poor, appropriate to amusement. Round the 
best players are groups of pipe-smoking spectators, and dominos 
are clattering in other parts of the hall. There is nothing bois- 
terous or rude ; an air even of refinement pervades the place. 
The inmates seem to be thankfully enjoying a rest after the day's 
work. 

* The name and composition of this Club have since been changed, it 
being now called Cercle des deux Mondes, and counting among its members 
a large number of Americans. 



THE THEATRES. 149 

It is past nine, when having driven back down the Boule- 
vards, I enter tlie Theatre des Varietes, and take possession of 
a sialic d'orchestre with that pleasant cachinnatory expectation 
wherewith one seats oneself in a Parisian Comic Theatre. 

Flanked by Music and Painting the Histrionic Art here assails 
the spectator with batteries of fun and pleasantry. The Theatre 
Francais, wliere Moliere and Corneille, and the Opera, where 
Mozart and Bellini preside, live in the high region of aesthetics. 
But the Varietes and its kindred are mostly in their aims too 
superficial to reach the (Esthetic sphere. They deal with facts not 
with feelings; and their facts are from that omnivorous but unin- 
spired receptacle, the absurd. Though not themselves expressing 
the profound, their representations have depth of significance. 
Just beneath the surface where the ridiculous plays its antics, lies 
a ground of seriousness and sadness. The fantastic figures of the 
Comic are at times but the flickering flames that shoot through 
the crust from an intense tragic fire that consumes the core. 
The absurd is the child of the illogical. The nonconformity to 
reason and divine law in the fundamental relations of men causes 
the discords and complications out of which the comic spins its 
motley web. The truth of comedy is often a demonstration of 
the falsehood of sober life. " Many a spectator here joins in the 
laugh at a sally, whose piquancy is the crack of the whip where- 
with his domestic peace is lashed to death. 

At these theatres three or four pieces are given. When the 
Parisian Bourgeois pays for a box, he wishes to spend in it the 
whole evening, and a long one. The second piece was nearly 
over when I entered. The third, the beginning whereof was not 
very sprightly, had proceeded half an hour, when a sudden roar 
in my ears made me start: — I had fallen asleep, and an electric 
burst of merriment had waked me. I strove hard to keep my 
ears alert for the next double entendre, but my eyes refusinc: 'o 
back them, I retreated, with the reflection, that a theatre is not the 



160 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

place for one who has worked hard all day. The crowd that I 
left so wide awake and in a mood so susceptible to fun, had risen 
late and worked by routine, or not at all. 
My day was ended, whether I would or not. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



A WALK IN THE LOUVEE. 



To-day, the 26th of July, 1851, I will take one of my last 
walks in the Louvre. 

Cane or umbrella you surrender in the vestibule, in the base- 
ment dedicated to ancient sculpture. Marble walls, marble col- 
umns, marble floor, marble statues in spacious lofty halls, over- 
topped by a palace and enfolded by four feet depth of stone. 
Here is a Temple consecrated to coolness. The dog-days stay 
outside with the umbrellas. Correspondent to the physical tern- 
perature, the moral air is sedative. A man enraged would 
quickly subside here : before these empedestalled ghosts he would 
be ashamed of heat. But you are not depressed, you are tran- 
quillized, you are elevated. Sculpture is serious, not sad ; ideal, 
not servile. The silence, whiteness, solidity, induce meditation. 
The calm of these figures imparts itself to the beholder ; their 
pensiveness is catching. They stand circumfused, and you with 
them, by the atmosphere of the world's early days. Vivid and 
youthful they come from the dim, dead past. They have the 
weight and dignity of age without its weakness. They are fresh 
from the heart of Antiquity. 

I always go first right through to the Gladiator. For two thou- 
sand years those marble limbs have glowed with the splendor of 
the perfect manly form. In presence of the living human body 
in this marvellous completeness, your delight in its power, and 



152 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

beauty almost passes into awe ; and then, the intensity of sensa« 
lion is relieved by thoughts on the power and beauty of the hu- 
man mind that could thus reproduce its own body. 

Art is a projection of man out of himself, under the momentum 
of an effort to appease his yearning for beauty. This creative 
warmth, when it results, as in this great sculpture, in the repro- 
duction of nature in her selectest proportions and expressions, im- 
plies mental elevation and intensity. High Art is the offspi'ing 
of the craving for perfection — a most noble parentage. 

Close by is the Venus of Milo, mutilated of the arms, in whose 
erect body, sinking as it were into itself, there is as much sleep- 
ing strength as voluptuousness. In the head and face, and espe- 
cially in the mouth, is a world of power. And herein this Venus 
is higher and truer than the famed one of Cleomenes in the Trib- 
une at Florence. It is a degradation of divine love to present 
its ideal in a rich body with a poor mental organization. Tiiis is 
to shorten its wings, to materialize its flame, to sensualize it too 
much. Where the head is so small, as in the statue of the Trib- 
une, all the passions are limited, straitened, belittled. There 
is no channel for the voluminous flood of love, for its exuberant 
ardors, no scope for a wide play of its kindling influence, for its 
deep impregnation of the whole large being with its fire. That it 
be unfolded in its full richness, it should inflame a glowing strong 
nature, such as is indicated by this head of the Louvre. In that 
wealthy mouth there is capacity for more than one passion, and 
the one that predominates is by this opulence ennobled. 

What is the source of the unique perfection in the Grecian 
l^pe of head ? It is, that the brain — itself well proportioned— 
has generated the face. All. the features are finely married to 
one another and to the forehead. The Grecian face is sub- 
ordinated to the forehead. Thus the nose is a continuation 
of the line of the brow, from which it has the air of being 
directly descended. A Grecian nose pre-supposes a good brow. 



I 



GRECIAN IDEAL OF THE HEAD AND FACE. 153 

The mouth and chin are predonminated by the nose ; they neither 
coarsely project nor weakly retreat. The same with the cheek 
bones, which are kept back by the intellectual, sensuous superior- 
ities of the forehead, nose and eyes. To say that, in a word, all 
the parts of head and face are in harmony, were not enough ; for 
the essence of the Greek ideal is a harmony growing out of the 
dominance of the superior parts. The Grecian face is not of 
necessity eminently intellectual, but it cannot be animal. There 
may be harmony out of the Grecian type, as there may be and 
is great beauty without prevalence of the Grecian characteristics. 

In the Grecian ideal the brow, the lower range of the forehead, 
is always full, the Greek mind being highly sensuous. In heads 
and faces the furthest removed from the Greek type, there is no 
subordination of face to forehead, and no smooth union among the 
features, nor between them and the brow. Cheek-bones are 
prominent, or nose and chin independent, or nose is scornful of 
its neighbors, kcknowledging no pre-eminence in the forehead 
above it, making between itself and the brow a chasm over which 
it petulantly leaps without the aid of a bridge, or springing out 
conceitedly from the rest of the face and going on its own hook. 

The renowned Diana, sister of the Apollo Belvidere, is here ; 
but the warm mood which one brings from the Venus is not that 
most favorable to appreciating the cold beauty of the man-shun- 
ning goddess. So, amid marbles less divinely touched, we will 
pass on to the stairway that leads to the galleries above. 

Architecture holds out her magnificent jewelled hand to conduct 
us from the halls of sculpture to those of painting. The ascent 
of this grand stairway is an enjoyment like that of gazing at a 
sculptured or painted masterpiece. 

Crossing the graceful, enmarbled Rotunda, at the head of the 
stairway, we traverse a gorgeous hall more than one hundred 
feet long, where decorative art has lavished its wealth of gildings 
and mouldings, and from whose upper end we issue directly into 

7* 



154 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

the great octagon room, on the lofty walls whereof are piled up 
many of the masterpieces of the collection, choice works of the 
columnar men of Art. Here we cannot now tarry ; this is to be 
the luxurious dessert of our day's feast ; so, walking I'esolutely 
through this treasure-house, we enter the long gallery, which, 
being arranged chronologically, opens with the painters of the 
14th and 15th centuries, whose greatest merit it is that they were 
the predecessors and teachers of Leonardo and Raphael. Had 
they not had such followers, their works would have been un- 
known. The light from the creations of their great pupils draws 
them out of darkness. Due honor to them as having made the 
dawn of an unequalled meridian splendor ; but we have not now 
come to study the development of the art, but to enjoy the pro- 
ducts of its ripeness. 

In our walk we shall stop before those that in frequent visits 
have oftenest arrested us ; not learnedly to comment on them, but 
to yield ourselves to the sentiment they awaken, attempting at 
most to account for the impression made on us, without aiming at 
critical precision or technical accuracy. Some of unquestionable 
excellence we shall pass by, and where we do pause, we shall 
not always have the most words for those we most prize. We go 
down on the right side. 

In the Fine Arts a sentiment, or incident, or person, or pas- 
sion, must be conveyed into the mind by beauty. If it has not 
beauty for its vehicle it does not reach the inmost soul, but rests 
for a time near the surface, whence it is soon effaced. Only in 
the beautiful is the divine idea vividly present, and therefore only 
by the beautiful is the human soul deeply wrought and fertilized. 
To feel this, first stop before this youthful head by the great 
Leonardo da Vinci, with auburn tresses thickly matted. With- 
out deadening, three centuries have shadowed that beaming brow, 
"iour admiring gaze is met by clear, full, soul-softened eyes. 
Through a rich smile the closed ample mouth speaks joy, which 



TITIAN.— GIORDANO. 166 

the eyes second. The up-pointing finger leads your eye to a 
thin, dim cross held in the other hand, and tells you that you are 
looking at St. John, whom, but for this emblem you would have 
taken for a paragon woman, so womanly are the head and face in 
their contour, benignant expression, and superlative beauty. Drink 
deeply of this countenance, and'carry away as much of it as you can ; 
the whole Empire of Art offers scarcely anything more inspired. 

Here is Francis I., by Titian. The large sensuous, sensual 
head of the luxurious King is in profile, and you at once perceive 
that this was the best view of him, as it always is of a man of 
his organization and temperament. This head is charged with 
electricity ; it scintillates with life. 

By the side of another superb portrait of Titian is the head of 
Tintoret, by himself, earnest, grizzly, vigorous. ~ 

Artists being the servants of Beauty, which is the twin-sister 
of Hope, should be hopeful when saddest : they should be op- 
timists. Tragic subjects treated in this transfiguring spirit are 
rare. Hence I avoid Crucifixions ; but it is impossible to pass 
this small one by Paul Veronese, it stands out in such ghastly 
clearness against that sickly sky. Only strong genius is equal 
to this awful theme, so that by the grandeur of the treatment 
Art bemasters the tragic with the sublime. Even the great Ru- 
bens hardly does this ; his Crucifixion in the Museum at Ant- 
werp is too terrific. His masterpiece is the Descent from the 
cross, by some deemed the masterpiece of the world. In a De- 
scent, the agony being over, the heart is not lacerated, and yet 
the whole feeling of the divine tragedy is brought home. 

Venus and Mars, with attendant Cupids, by Lucca Giordano. 
This little picture is buoyed up by the warmth of its coloring ; 
it seems almost to float on the air, Mark the little Cupids, one 
of them with a dog, how intent they are on their own play, as 
if their work was done, and they wei*e taking a holiday. 

Cast a glance at the Canalellos and Guardis, with whom canal 



lU SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPK 

and |x**'y, marble and water, fluid and solid, are but accessories 
to exhibit the transparence of a Venitian atmosphere. 

We ba>e arrived at the Holy Family, by Murillo, before which 
we would fain distend our faculty of admiration. The mother is 
seated, the child Jesus standing on her knee, taking hold of the 
cross held by the child St. John below, the lamb is on the ground 
before St. John's feet, the dove over the head of Jesus, and the 
Father is bending over all from the clouds in an attitude of 
love and benediction. A rosy freshness with harmony of color, 
perfect grouping, and an expression from the whole of religious 
serenity and holy sweetness, hold you before this picture in a 
state which proves to you the exalting power of Art, The ab- 
sence of a shining ideal in the heads is made up for by depth of 
feeling, simplicity, naturalness, and grace. 

Hanging next it is a landscape by Collantes, full of Southern 
richness and Spanish passion. 

Here is a Salvator Rosa that would whet an assassin's lust 
for blood. I don't mean the grand battle-piece, but the stormy 
landscape, the rock-fronted desolation, with corseletted bandits 
perched on a precipice. 

Walk on until you are stopped by the light which breaks as 
through a window, from a Holy Family resting in their flight 
by Albani. Not the first one, but the second, No. 6. [In the 
first one. No. 5, the landscape is the best.] Winged Angels are 
offering flowers to the Child, who leans forward from his mother's 
lap to take them. The landscape looks illuminated by the holy 
travellers. The figures are wrought with miniature fineness, 
without weakness. Two Cherubs flying down with a basket of 
flowers, is a picture within a picture. 

We are now in the Rubens' Gallery. This series of colossal 
canvas exhibits the boundless conception and invention of Ru- 
bens. But his hands could not gather up all the wealth that his 
brain shook down. 



TENIERS.— VANDYKE.— CUYP. 167 

Teniers exemplifies the force of truth. Vividly reproduce Na- 
lure in full moments, and without your seeking it the electric 
ligiit of beauty will radiate from your canvas. The Temptation 
of the Anchorite is such a picture as Burns would have painted, 
had he worked with pencil. It is sparkling with strength and 
fun. And so brilliantly executed, such a transparency of light 
and shade, such reality and vivacity of comic effects. The 
bearded head of the Anchorite is grand. 

Gerard Dow, Ostade, Mieris, express the delight there is in the 
artistic reproduction of simple, homely objects. With them, Art 
concentrates itself into microscopic fidelity. But there is some- 
thing more than this. Look at the Seller of game, by Mieris ; it 
is ideal as well as real, so select is each object, and wrought with 
such fineness of texture, which fineness is itself a phasis of the 
beautiful. 

At the end of this compartment are the Vandykes. The best 
one is on the other side. If you wish to be spoken to by a pic- 
ture, put yourself face to face with the portrait next to the col- 
umn, the gentleman with open collar and dark velvet doublet. 

Before coming upon Wouvermans, there is a single Moucheron, 
a strip of French elegant rurality, with vases and an orange sky, 
a glorious segment cut out by genius from Nature's wide land- 
scape. 

Two Boths, with skies that are active with life. Whoso can 
paint the air in motion with sun in it is a master of landscape. 
That is the key ; the rest may by many be acquired ; that is the 
gift. In a picture, as in nature, good air is the first necessary • 
it vitalizes each tiniest part. 

A few steps further is a small Heus, a gem of tone, color, deli- 
cacy and truth ; warm and happy. 

Here is a Cuyp, with shepherds and cows, which warms the 
whole of the broad canvas it covers. It has the virtue of cheer- 
fulness. 



158 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Then we have a weahh of Ruysdaels, Van Bergons, and one 
Hobbema,* who is the painter of coolness. The Van Bergen 
next to it glows in contrast with pleasant summer heat. 

We pass a number of good Dujardins to get to the better Berg, 
hems. There are eight or nine of them, all with sleek cattle 
and shepherdesses, and all full of health and content. Cattle tell 
of home and sufficiency. We like to see them thus honored by 
Art ; it pays part of our debt to them. 

Amid them is a large Wynants, strong enough to stand its ground 
in such proximity. Let us not overlook a Vintrank over the last 
Berghem. It is a sample of modest merit. 

We have reached the French department, beginning with a 
long line of landscapes by Poussin. His pictures want freedom 
and lightness, and especially they want atmosphere, whereby 
their grace of composition is blurred. He has been called the 
learned Poussin. He could never be called the inspired. His pic- 
tures are faded ; and even the cheerful subjects have a sad look. 

The glory of French art is Claude Lorrain, the lustrous, as he 
might be termed. He has visited the sun, and brought away the 
secret of its light. His pictures are heated by so natural a fer- 
vor, that it seems supernatui'al. It looks not like art, but intu- 
ition. But besides this there is an unfading grace in his forms, 
whether of hill, tree, bridge or building. His water is luminous. 

Go to the end of the gallery for the sake of a head by Lefevre. 
In this head is the mystery of all great portraits. The features 
and flesh are transparent by means of a light burning within, 
which makes the blood tingle to the surface. 

We have walked fourteen hundred feet in a straight line ; we 
will return on the other side. 

Pass the long, stiff, uniform regiment of lifeless Lesueurs, and 

* My friend, Thomas J. Bryan, of Philadelphia, for many years a resi- 
dent of Paris, has in his collection a Hobbema of higher quality than this 
one. 



PHILLTPE DE CIIAMPAONE.— PYXAKER.— MIGNON. 159 

only stop for a moment before a head by Ferdinand Bol, in u-hich 
studbnts of Harvard of a quarter of a century back will recognize 
good President Kirldand energized. 

A few steps further is the exquisite Vanderfelde, an evening 
cattle-piece, with the purple-tinted sky reflected in the glassy 
water. 

We skip a long file to get to a portrait before which I always 
linger longer than before any other in the Louvre, No. 389, by 
Phillips de Champagne. The lips are slightly parted, for there 
is more life within than could be supported by breathing through 
one inlet. From the polish on the hair to the dew of the eye, 
there is everywhere inflation of life. The flesh has the pulpy 
look that belongs to an in-door man, and the transparent hand 
knows of no rough handlings. Pause here still to wonder at the 
vivifying power there is in the fingers of man when moved by a 
genial brain. 

Next we have three landscapes by Pynaker, three graces. 
Here are skies as warm and lively as Claude Lorrain's ; not so 
dazzling, because freshened by more northern clouds and less 
expansive. Every object is rounded by the mellow ripening air. 
Clover is growing sweeter 6very hour, and peaches more juicy. 
The distances are as true as an Indian's sight. 

Stop before a fruit-piece by Mignon, the one with the melon 
and the red Indian corn, and the summer ripeness and luxuriance. 
To judge from a glimpse we get through a leaf-darkened arch, 
the landscape beyond is fine, but is shut out by overgrowth of 
August foliage. 

Six naked children dancing in a ring, hand in hand, to music 
by a maiden on a triangle, by Giraud de Lairesse. The treat- 
ment is not equal to the conception and composition, and to the 
sensibility denoted by the choice of subject. 

Three landscapes by Asselyn, which might serve as pendants 
to those of Pynaker, 



160 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROrE. 

Next to these is a nest of Poelembergs, who should be sfyled 
the pearly. A practised discernment might, one would thinic, in. 
the characteristics of the work, detect those of the artist. Yet 
the engraved portrait of PoeJemberg is not at all wanting in bold- 
ness and virility, while his pictures look as though the hand that 
painted them had been as soft as that of a petted woman. 

I am not attracted by architectural pictures, but I cannot pass 
by Pannini's interior of St. Peter's at Rome, painted on a canvas 
about seven feet by five. The elevation, the vastness, the rich- 
ness, the spaciousness, the play of light through gigantic arches, 
the grandeur and gorgeousness of the marble world, all is there. 

It is wearing late, and the large hall awaits us. We must 
hasten by the Carraccis and the Guides, the tears in the eyes of 
whose upturned feminine faces are drops distilled from the seren- 
est depths of Heaven. But here is a countenance we can never 
pass without a greeting. Look at that youthful, mild, thoughtful, 
beardless, beautiful, womanly, profound face. Coleridge some- 
where says that high poetic genius is largely feminine. The 
mind of universal sympathies has twofold elements. The type 
and exponent of humanity, it partakes of woman's as well as 
man's nature. The truth of this is exemplified in the picture be- 
fore us, and in the character of him of whom it is the portrait. 
It is that of the youthful Raphael, . 

that beaming face, 



Where intellect is wed to grace. 

Now we are back to the octagon Hall, seated before the vast 
renowned Paul Veronese, the Feast of Cana. This picture repre- 
sents not a solemn miracle, but a pleasant festival ; it is agreeable, 
not great. Its merits are in coloring and individualities ; as a 
whole it is prosaic. Neither the head nor the position of Jesus is 
predominant. But for the glory, it would hardly be recognized. 
The foreground is filled by the musicians, who should be nowhere 



CORREGGIO.— GIORGIONE. 161 

visible. The two wings of the table pull the eyes from onn to 
the other across the wide caqvas. In a sacred subject such 
ffross anachronisms of costume and architecture are not allowable. 
Take away the Christ, and the picture becomes more satisfactory. 
It has not the elevation and holiness which that subduing presence 
should shed, whatever the subject. 

Two hours of standing and walking, with eyes and brain 
stretched before scores of differing mind-moving objects, drain 
the nervous reservoir. It has just replenished itself by a delicious 
slumber of twenty minutes, whereto the deep, springy, soft-backed 
ottoman was accessory. A day-sleep I never enjoyed more than 
this, and rise up re-animated to finish my grateful task. 

The master is shown by the selection of subjects, and then by 
his mastery in treatment over a good choice. Capability of grace 
is the highest test of a pictorial subject. The artist having the 
insight and sensibility to appreciate this test, his next step is to 
make the most of this capability in his execution. Look at the 
Correggio on the left of the Supper of Cana. Here is grace in 
forms, in attitude, in grouping, in expression. 

Beauty does not necessarily involve grace. Grace is the 
matrix of beauty, but the offspring sometimes neglects the parent. 
Grace is the finer essence, an emanation or a movement which is 
more than corporeal beauty. " The beautiful," says Plato, " is 
the splendor of the true." Tlie graceful may be called the spirit 
of the beautiful. Grace is always beautiful, but beauty is not 
always graceful. 

Contrast with this divine Correggio the Giorgione next to it. 
Those two nude female figures look as though they had been fatted 
for roasting. 

Talent cannot reveal, it can only perceive what is already re- 
vealed ; new things it invests with old forms. Genius not only 
reveals, but to old things it gives a new face. See that Raphael, 
the winged St. Michael descending, spear-pointed, upon the pros- 



162 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

trated Devil. Here is grandeur magnified, simplicity ennobled, 
by grace. What lightness in th^ down-flashing angel, and at the 
same time what power; how strength is spiritualized by beauty. 
The wings here give impetus to the blow. Wings help a descend- 
ing figure ; but when the figure ascends, their inadequacy to lift 
the human body will mhigle in and weaken the efTect. The 
wings idealize the combat, which without them would be prosaic, 
like all combats, the which are therefore subordinate subjects of 
Art. The cultivated sensibility, which in health rejects real 
horrors, digests easily the factitious when handled in this style. 
In Raphael as in Shakspeare instinct and judgment work to- 
gether. 

The Correggio opposite, Antiope and Jupiter in form of a satyr, 
with its glittering beauty in the head and limbs of Antiope; falls 
short of perfection from the ungraceful foreshortened position of 
the body. 

The comic dispenses with grace, or rather it veils it with a play- 
ful mask. In the owner is an Ostade, wherein is more of the 
comic than probably the artist intended. It is a schoolroom, with 
urchins at anything but their books, and presents a quiet rich con- 
trast between pedagogy and nature, between compulsion and 
liberty, the teacher being the most compelled. What transpar- 
ence, individuality, reality. The light goes into every corner, 
and the shadows too are everywhere. You can measure the 
dimensions of the room. 

Further to the left is a Solario, a Mother suckling her child, 
before the which you can commit no extravagance of praise, such 
a clustering of beauties is there. You think the mother's face the 
most beautiful you ever saw, so beaming is it vvith maternal joy. 
Then fix your look on the infant, holding, in the playful fulness 
of life, one foot in his hand. After you have wondered at the 
creative eflicacy of Art, cap your admiration with a gaze into his 
half-closed eye. I know not what is the judgment of traditional 



BEAUTY IN ART. 163 

criticism on this picture, but to me it is one of the master- works of 
the Louvre. 

We pass a female head of Rembrandt, glowing in the golden 
mist that he steeps his heads in, and pause before a Raphael 
beside it, another maternal incarnation, and we let the breath of 
genius inflate enthusiasm till it floods. Here is a rainbow of ex- 
pression whose feet are the countenances of the ecstatic St. John 
and the sleeping child, and its arch that of the benignant mother. 

Next is another woman. But here is no deep emotion inspiring 
the countenance. There is no sparkling flush of feeling on the 
surface. The soul is not out on the face, it sleeps behind. Gaze, 
and you will become aware of it, and at the same time not wish 
it more revealed. The power of beauty here suffices ; its excess 
is its inspiration. Anything more were too much, and would 
overcome the artist. This is beauty in its calm splendor, in its 
dazzling ripeness. It is " Titian's Mistress." 

Beauty in Art, itself the highest artistic creation, is in turn 
creative, inbreeding in the beholder new thoughts, dilating him 
into a higher, happier susceptibility. 



, 



CHAPTER XX. 



FRAGMENTS. 






In one of the "Latter Day Pamphlets," Mr. Carlyle asks 
tauntingly, what have the Americans done ? — We have abolished 
Monarchy, we have abolished Aristocracy ; we have sundered 
Church and State ; we have so wrought with our English inheri- 
tance, that most Englishmen better their condition by quitting-the 
old home and coming to the new. We have consolidated a State, 
under whose disinterested guardianship the cabined and strait- 
ened of the old world find enlargement and prosperity. We have 
suppressed standing armies ; we have decentralized government 
to an extent that before our experiment was deemed hopeless ; 
we have grown with such a dream-like rapidity, as to stand, after 
little more than a half-century of national existence, prominent on 
the earth among the nations ; and this, through the wisdom of 
political organization, whereby such scope is given to industry 
and invention, that not only are our native means profitably de- 
veloped, but the great influx of Europeans is healthfully absorbed. 
We have in fifty years put between the Atlantic and the Pacific 
an Empire of twenty-five millions, who work more than any 
twenty-five millions on earth, and read more than any other fifty 
millions. We have built a State at once so solid and flexible, 
that it protects all without oppressing any. Our land is a hope 
and a refuge to the king-crushed. laborers of Europe, and from 
the eminence above all other lands to which it has ascended, by 






FRAGMENTS. 165 

our forecast, vigor, and freedom, it is to the thinker a demonstra- 
tion of the upward movement of Christendom, and a justification 
of hopes that look to still higher elevations. 

Mr. Carlyle's sneers at our lack of heroism would be unworthy 
of him, from their very silliness, were they not more so from their 
sour injustice. Let any People recite its heroic deeds, on flood 
or field, since we were a nation, and we will match every one of 
them. And in the private sphere, where self-sacrifice, devotion, 
courage, find such scope for heroic virtues, our social life is warm 
with them. But this is no theme for words. For his unworthy 
ones, we deem well enough of Mr. Carlyle to believe, that, when 
disengaged from the morbidly subjective, and therefore blinding 
and demoraliziog moods, to which he is liable, he is ashamed of 
having printed them. It looks somewhat as though this passage 
had been written just to give us an opportunity of victorious re- 
tort, or to tempt us into an exhibition of our national propensity to 
brag, — a propensity, be it said, which is national in every na- 
tion we know anything of, whether English, French, German, or 
Italian. We only beat them in bragging, just as we beat them 
in ploughs and statues, in clippers and steamboats, in whalemen 
and electric telegraphs, in cheap newspapers and cheap govern- 
ment. They all do their best at bragging, and so do we, — and 
we beat them. 



The mummies of Egypt are a type of conservatism, — a child- 
ish effort to perpetuate corporeal bulk, to eternize the perishable, 
to subordinate essence to form, to deny death. The result is a 
mummy. 



It were hard to say, whether in this " villainous world" there is 
more of malignant censure, or of unclean praise. 



Hereditary aristocrats arc puppets to whom motion is imjmrted 



166 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

by wires, inserted undei ground into the dead bones of their fore- 
fathers. 



In England, money is the only means wherewith to get what 
is called a " good education." The best is poor enough, to be 
sure. For want of culture, the minds and souls of the masses 
stagnate in a brutish obscurity, or blindly stir in a chaotic twi- 
light. Thus are the noblest and highest faculties in man dependent 
for their unfolding and growth, on gold, — gold, which in our pres- 
ent society, -is ever obtained by accident, by self-immolation, or by 
fraud. The treasure of God is in the keeping of Mammon. — With 
us, public schools greatly assuage this evil. 



In civilized life, — which is a universal battle, — truth forms the 
reserve, and is only brought up at critical junctures. 



There are spiritual egotists, people who self-complacently as- 
sume to be the elected of God. The humility of such is a weed 
nourished in the rank soil of pride ; their belief is mostly an in- 
duration on the fancy of a shallow nature. 



Many of the self-righteous are not only proud of their supposed 
nearness to God, but assume towards him patronizing airs ; so 
monstrous are the effects of pride in combination with religion. 



Music is a marriage of the sensual with the spiritual. Each 
is merged in the other. In perfect harmony there will be neither 
sensual nor spiritual, but the two will be made oite in the fulness 
of life and purity. 



One has at times the desire to cast away one's personality, with 
all the petty memories and imaginations that cling around self, 
and to bound off into the empyrium of the Universal. Thus dis- 



FRAGMENTS. 167 

encumbered, the Intellect and Soul might make great discoveries. 
Is not this the secret of the far-seeing glances of some of the 
mesmerized, that they are emancipated from the bonds of self, 
and for the time lifted out of the obscurities of fleshly life, into 
the translucent sphere of the disembodied ? 



Galileo calls doubt the fatlier of inventions. 



The practical might imparted by integrity is seldom fully val- 
ued. Hence Washington is underrated by some men, who judge 
him by his intellect and prudence. 



Our habitation, the Earth, is not self-subsisting ; it moves in 
dependence on a heavenly body far distant. The Sun's light 
helps to feed the breath of our bodies ; and shall we from the soil 
beneath our feet, from the dust into which our bodies dissolve, 
draw the breath of our souls ? If millions of miles off is one of 
the chief sustainers of our flesh, where should we look for the 
source of the spirit we feel within us ? 



When a man's conversation consists chiefly of reminiscence, 
he may be said to talk backwards. 



People in high places who are not beneficent, are out of place 
on an elevation. 



When there have been great examples of virtue, revealing the 
capabilities of human nature, crime in the powerful is more 
criminal than in earlier inexperienced times. The selfishness of 
Napoleon is more repugnant than that of Csesar. 



In many cases when people speak of their conscience, conceit 
is mistaken for conscience 



108' SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

When man is young, the whence he is and the mysteriousness 
of his being possess his nascent thoughts. Later, he occupies 
himself about the object and ends of his existence. Hence the 
religious dreams of nations in their youth ; and the philosophies 
of nations that are cultivated- 



Preaching is in these days not unlike shovelling sand with a 
pitchfork. 

Men whose masterly vigor was the servant of expediency not 
of principle, self-seekers not truth-seekers, liars in act and in 
thought, were Cromwell and Bonaparte. 



The Hebrews mounted to the idea of unity ; but their God 
was I'evengeful, " a jealous God," and therefore false and sub- 
human. 

The Greeks were more intellectual and much more sesthetic 
than the Hebrews ; yet one cannot conceive of Christianity ori- 
ginating in polytheistic Greece, it could only spring up in mono- 
theistic Judea. 



Beliefs imply non-beliefs. Creeds are compounded mainly of 
nea;ations. 



To the opinions and creeds they have received from their fa- 
thers men hold as to the houses and lands they have inherited. 
Conservatism is a sort of materialism, men confounding the spir- 
itual with the material, and treating him who takes away their 
opinions like him who steals their cattle ; in their density not per- 
ceiving that, instead of a theft, the destruction of their opinions is 
a barter whereby they may gain a hundred-fold. Thoughts are 
subject to higher laws than things. 



The remedy for England is to turn, not her waste lands to use, 



FRAGMENTS. 169 

but her waste mind, her waste intellect and feeling. This, the 
most precious domain she possesses, is half tilled in patcnes. 



Good rhetoric is a good thing in a good cause. 



By continuous breach of the moral law, men forfeit mental 
growth. Napoleon and Cromwell grew not wiser as they grew 
older. Their minds did not ripen, they petrified. 



On the Continent of Europe it looks as though government had 
been made first, and man afterwards. 



The great recent discoveries of Gall, of Fourier, of Priesnitz, 
all combine to make apparent the resources, the incalculable 
vigors, the inborn sufficiency of man. 



In England so many people look as though they were waiting 
for my lord. 



That with all the mind's achievements, practical and poetical, 
its conquests in science, its Christian and intellectual develop- 
ment, its many enlargements and emancipations, there still should 
be so much evil, so much misery, proves how wide a swing man- 
kind must make to fulfil its destiny. Hereby are denoted opu- 
lence, and depth, and complexity of power. 

In this light, evil is a whip to urge moral effort up to high 
tension. Society perfects itself through tribulation. Man may 
be figured as at first lying in the low places of life, with but dim 
sparse glimmerings into upper fields. Out of a night of animal 
being, little by little he struggles into the day of a wider hu- 
manitv, his strufjcles srettinij fiercer as he rises. As feeling and 
thought unfold themselves, his inward conflicts grow warmer and 
deeper. The grandeurs of his nature loom out as much in endu- 

8 



1*70 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

ranee as in action. The terrible, the pathetic, the sublime, are 
the great oftspring of his throes, the tokens of his splendor and 
his resources. Tlirough this stormy region, darkened by chasms 
and abysses, he ascends to one more serene, where, under influ- 
ences wrought out by his higher self, he breathes an atmosphere 
predominated by spiritual elements. He grows in intellect by 
working with Nature in her richest fields ; and with his heart 
purified by beauty, and enlarged and strengthened into freer 
communion with God, he attains at last to a blessed activity, a 
creative calm. 



Shakspeare's words, when boldest and richest, are but ambas- 
sadors, behind whom there is a greater than themselves. Ra- 
cine's and Afieri's, though not so erect and gorgeous, are the 
Kings themselves, and thus leave nothing untold, and feed not 
the imagination. 



To see things as they are, one must have sympathy with the 
Spirit of God, whence all things come. Then can be discerned 
to what degree there is remoteness from original design, and thus 
actual conditions be rightly judged. 



In the style of Shakspeare there is an oceanic undulation. In 
that of Corneille and Racine the surface is level, or if broken, it 
is with furrows, not with billows. 



In poetiy, much of the meaning is conveyed by the sound. 
Transpose the words of a fine passage, and you impair its import. 



You may gather a rainbow out of one of Rubens's great pictures. 



A sonnet should be like a spring, in being clear and deep in 
proportion to its surface ; and like a whirlpool, in a certain silent 
self-involved movement. 



FRAGMENTS. m 

The mind is defiled that comments liabitually on tno vices of 
otiicrs. One tliat is undefiled, cannot long endure the fumes that 
arise from the stirrinec of moral filth. 



When a man readily gives ear to a calumny, he betrays fellow, 
feeling with the malignity whence it sprang. 



Forms soon waste the substance they are designed to hold. 
Thus ceremony and hypocritical corporeal salutations get to be a 
substitute for genuine politeness ; religion is crushed under a 
burthen of ritual observances ; paper-money drives out metal, to 
represent which, it was invented. 



Some of Wordsworth's poetry is, like his person, too gaunt ; it 
wants a fuller clothing of flesh. 



Many of the old monasteries were founded by repentant repro- 
bates ; and the early sins of their founders seem to have borne 
fuller crops, than their lattei* virtues. 



Every now and then a woman sallies boldly into our territory ; 
as if she wanted to make reprisals on the tailors. 



When you build selfishly, you build frailly. When your acts 
are hostile to the broad interests of your fellow-men, they are 
seed which will one day come up weeds, to choke your own har- 
vest-field. 



A man with wounded feelings walks into the country, and 
there the perfumes and sweet aspects of Nature accost his heart 
with consolation. 



Rhymes should sit as lightly on verse, as flowers on plants. 



172 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Poetry is not put into verse to please the ear ; it is in verse be- 
cause it is the offspring of a spirit akin to that which dwells ever 
in hearing of the music of the spheres. To poetry, rhythm is as 
natural, as symmetry to a beautiful face. Genuine verse pleases 
the ear, because like the voice of childhood or of woman, it is in 
itself delightful. The setting sun, a lively landscape, a noble 
deed, give pleasure, because they speak to and are in harmony 
with our higher being ; and so is poetry, and therefore it too gives 
pleasure. But to say, that the object of poetry is to give pleasure, 
is to rank it with the shallow inventions of the showman. 



In the drama, the incidents should all grow out of the charac 
ters. Individual characterization is the mystery of the drama. 
He who does not unlock this mystery, fails to achieve a genuine 
drama, whatever may be his other excellencies. 



The strong genius who rules, as strong genius always does, 
his fellows, feeds them from the common springs of humanity, 
with evil or with good, through the vast channels of his own 
mind. If himself evil, the evil of his time sways his contempo- 
raries through him. Into himself he collects the black vapors of 
falsehood, and blasts them forth over the world or his country, 
with a tempestuous power, before which the good and the true 
shrink for a time into privacy and silence. But what he does, 
however stupendous, lacks life ; for evil cannot create, it can 
only obstruct or arrest ci'eative good. 



The poet is the pupil of truth ; for the false can never be poetry. 



The dramatic writer, says Lessing, as his production is to be 
seen as well as heard, is somewhat under the restrictions of the 
painter. 

Lessing, who may almost be called the father of modern criti- 



FRAGMENTS. 178 

cism, thinks that the chief cause of the inferiority of the Romans 
in tragedy, was their gladiatorial combats. In the words of De 
Quincoy, who has adopted this opinion, " the amphitheati'e extin- 
guished the theatre." 



In sunny, fruitful, populous Italy, naught is so alive as the 
voice of the long-dead Dante. Sick at heart, the Italian, prince- 
ridden and priest-ridden, goes to his home, saddened by the exe- 
cution, or imprisonment, or exile of a son or brother, and there, 
to fly from the present, he opens his Dante ; — and soon his pulse 
beats strong again, and his eye glistens, and he gains assurance 
of his own manhood, and he hopes and he dares. 



Where in English Prose is there a diction so copious, apt, force- 
ful, as Carlyle's, at once so transparent with poetic light and so 
compact with a home-driving, idiomatic solidity, doing the errand 
of a thoughtful fervent nature with such fulness and emphasis ? 



Possibly the mind cannot, in its most far-piercing imaginations, 
outrun its capabilities. Were it a law of being, that the bright- 
est flowers, unfolded in the sun of the heart's warmest day-dreams, 
contain the seeds of substantial realities ? 



Just ideas are the only source of healthy moral life ; by them 
are institutions moulded, and to uphold institutions which ideas 
have outgrown, is to be destructive, not conservative. They are 
the highest benefactors of their race who can discern and apply 
the deepest ideas ; and thus the boldest reformer may be the 
truest conservative. 



The Greeks and the English seem to be the only two nations 
possessing enough sap and vigor and fulness of nature, to repro- 
duce themselves in distant soils, through colonists that swarmed 
off' from the parent hive. 



114: SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

What power there is in belief, and what power in falsehood, 
in our sensual organization of society, that sinful, semi-pagan 
Rome is still the so-called spiritual head of the half of Chris- 
tendom. 



In Italy the living is clewed to the dead : the carcass of the 
past lies athwart the legs of the present. 



The increasing delight in Natural Scenery is one of the proofs 
that man is growing nearer to God. 



We talk of this man's style and that man's, when, rightly 
speaking, neither of them has a style. Style implies a substantial 
body of self-evolved thought. The mode and quality of the 
clothing in words and phrases to this original body constitutes 
style. Now; from so few minds come fresh emanations, that most 
writings are but old matter re-worded, current thought re-dressed. 
Each one's individual mode of re-wording and re-dressing is, 
and should be called, his manner, not his style. In Writing as in 
Painting, every man, the weakest as well as the strongest, must 
have a manner, but few can have a style. 



To be sought and cherished is the man whose mind is too large 
to be filled by creeds and systems, and too generous to close 
itself against any wants of humanity. The mental home of the 
true man is among principles, and principles are infinitely ex- 
pansive. 

People nominally worship God one day in the week, and 
really worship Mammon seven. 



The grand and sublime are in the exuberance of rudlmental 
energy. Heaving and glowing with creative power> they stand 



FRAGMENTS. I'lS 

apart, too stern to coalesce, too overbearing for harmony. Tlicy 
are Strength not yet married to Grace. Hence they generally 
precede the beautiful. Phidias came before Praxitiles, Michael 
Angelo before Raphael, -lEschylus before Sophocles. 



1st Boy (tauntingly). Who was that man with your father? 
2d Boy. That man's worth more than your father. 
1st Boy. He was drunk, anyhow. 
2d Boy. He's worth two houses. 

1st Boy (worsted). Ho, I guess my father's worth two houses, 
too. (Street dialogue, Newport, R. I., Jan. 26, 1848.) 



St. Augustine calls Homer, " Sweet liar." 



The Bible should be studied with activity of spirit. Its great 
heart will not beat but to the throbbing of yours. Just to read 
it passively, traditionally, dulls the very susceptibility through 
which it is to be taken in. Not thus will you find God in the 
Bible. Who has not first sought him in his own heart and in 
the life around him, will scarcely find him there at all. God is 
not locked up in the Bible : he is at all times around, within us. 
Strive with Jesus to feel his presence. Then you may hope for 
purification, for inspiration : then your heart may produce bibli- 
cal chapters. For what is in the Bible came out of the human 
soul, touched to inspired utterances by the awakened inward 
divinity. 

The Priests of Rome discourage intercourse with God through 
the Bible, which is already at one remove. Themselves they 
constitute the sole interpreters of the divine, the sole medium of 
communication between God and man. The divine essence they 
would first distil through the foul alembic of their brazen egot- 
ism. Hence, where they long dominate, religion becomes mate- 



m SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

rialized, and for uplifting, soul-purging knowledge of God, is 
substituted abasing, sensual submission to priesthood. 



Widely and kindly around us must we look as well as in- 
wardly and upwardly, or we leave untenanted some of the heart's 
best chambers. Our breasts are large enough to entertain mul- 
titudes, and only when thus filled is our daily life a full blessing. 



Our poor social organization engenders vacuums, which are 
apt to fill with wind. Hence, most of Northern " abolitionism," 
and other pseudo-philanthropies. Many people are not comfortable 
without pets or hobbies. It is not the poor African that is the 
pet, — would that it were, — but a something abstract, an ideal for- 
mula, a pet of the mind. That it cannot become concrete, is its 
chief qualification as a hobby. It can be ridden the more 
showily and at the same time safely. Snuffing perfume from 
the fields sown by a philanthropized imagination, the rider ca- 
reers along with a plethoric self-complacency, and really believes 
that he is doing something. And so he is, in truth, but some- 
thing different from what he believes. This class of people have 
discovered the secret of making virtue easy. 



An ape is a creature who has approached the gates of reason, 
and stands there gi'inning and jabbering in tragi-comical igno- 
rance of his nearness to the regal palace. 



Religious humility is apt to be accompanied by personal ar- 
rogance. 



So luminous and creative is the mind, that what is brought to 
it through the imagination is often more stirring than the same 
presented by the senses. Hence, some scenes are more exciting 
if well told, than if actually beheld. The mind magnifies and 
adorns them in its immeasurable chambers. 



FRAGMENTS. 177 

We seek happiness by heaping on our puny selves all we can, 
each one building, according to the joint force of his intellect and 
selfishness, a reversed pyramid, under the which the higher it 
rises the lower he is crushed on the small spot his small self can fill. 



We are capable of life-long joy. Continuous, varied enjoy- 
ment might be the sum of earthly existence. If our lives will not 
bring out this sum, it is because men have misplaced, or mislaid, 
or overlooked, or misreckoned with some of the counters. 



Wlien we sow the best fields of life with our appetites, we can- 
not but reap hates and fears. Blighting disappointment comes 
from thwarted greeds, from frustrated self-seeking. 



A fit ideal embodiment of the artist were a countenance up- 
raised, beaming, eager, joyful, moulded with somewhat of femi- 
nme mobility. 

Goethe goes out of himself into the being of natural objects. 
Wordsworth takes their being up into himself. These two poets 
illustrate sharply the difference between the ohjective and the sub- 
jective. 

Envv, like venomous reptiles, can only strike at short distances. 



There is no deeper law of nature than that of change. 



A book should be a distillation. 



Everything that we do being a cause, he is the most sagacious 
who so does that each cause shall have its good effect. This 
practical long sightedness is wisdom, the want of it foolishness. 
To-days are all fathers of to-morrows, but like many other fathers, 

8* 



1/8 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

they sadly neglect their paternal duties. To-day, if it thinks at 
all, thinks of itself, and leaves to-morrow to take care of itself. 
Life is a daily laying of eggs, some to be hatched to-morrow, 
some next month, some next year, some next century. Many are 
not hatched at all, but rot or are broken ; many come premature- 
ly out of the shell, and perish from debility ; and thus that much 
life is wasted. Charity is long-sighted, selfishness is short-sighted. 
And yet, so defective is our social constitution, that a man may 
be long-sighted in using his neighbor for his own ends. Thus 
doctors, — who are short-sighted when they- take their own physic, 
which they seldom do, — are long-sighted when they give it to 
their patients; for the more of it these take, the oftener the doc- 
tor is called. It were a mistake to suppose that parsons are 
long-sighted because they set their minds so much upon the next 
world J their long-sightedness consists in directing other people's 
thoughts to that quarter, while from the super-mundane specta- 
tors they draw the wherewithal to be content with this. — Lawyers 
are short-sighted when they encourage litigation ; the long- 
sighted know that the perverted passions of civilized men will 
bring grist enough to their mill without their stir. — Tailors intend 
to be long-sighted when they stitch on your buttons instead of 
sewing them. — The man who sells rum is short-sighted, but less 
so than he who drinks it. — Authors are very short-sighted when 
they write to please the public, instead of writing to please the 
truth. — Expedients are short-sighted, principles long-sighted ; 
and notwithstanding the apparent prosperity of some liars, nothing 
is so long-sighted as truth. 



In the plainest of Wordsworth's many hundred sonnets there is 
more or less of the fragrant essence of high humanity. 



To write a good book on any subject requires the " instinct of 
the beautiful." 



FRAGMENTS. 1T9 

" You cannot serve God and Mammon :" nay, you cannot serve 
yourself and Mammon. 



To weave the wondrous form wherewith life invests itself in 
humanity, the heart works ceaselessly, and every organ, member, 
part and particle of the living frame works, each joyfully in its 
sphere, in unison with the heart, for the maintenance of the 
common fabric. But a continuation and extension of the uncon- 
scious labor of the heai't and lungs is the conscious work of the 
head and hand of man, whose end is, to feed, to clothe, to lodge, 
to develop, to delight his body and his mind. All labor, the un- 
conscious and the conscious, is but life methodized, that is, life 
made more living, more intelligent, and thence more productive. 
And thus labor, which is the condition and result of life, becomes 
the means of its perpetuation, its extension, its elevation. All 
labor may be delightful ; and as, the healthier the body is, the 
more joyfully and thoroughly the heart and its allies perform their 
unconscious work, so in a healthy social organization all labor, 
the greatest and the least, ceasing to be repulsive and becoming 
attractive and delightful, would be proportionately productive. A 
consummation this not barely most devoutly to bo wished, but 
most surely to be accomplished, by that high labor which the in- 
tellect exalted by love and faith is equal to performing. 



The ideas of eternity and infinity are innate in the human 
mind as attractions towards perfection, as indications and promises 
of incalculable elevation. 



The subjects of old European Monarchies inherit from the past 
such a load of debt, of slow-paced customs, of lazy monopolies, 
and other cold drawbacks fi'om behind, that they cannot move 
forward. Instead of briskly turning the now, the to-day, to rich 
account, they have to work first against yesterday, to stave it otF 



180 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

with its manifold pressure. Hence, half the laborers of England, 
Germany, France, earn not for themselves food, clothing and 
lodging enough to keep out hunger and cold. Their hands are 
mortgaged to the past. Their existence has no new life in it ; it 
is a lingering perpetuation of the past. Whereas we of demo- 
cratic America let not the past accumulate upon us. For us, 
sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. We make clean work 
as we go. We keep the present lively, because we are ever 
snatching a new present from across the confines of the future. 
We are always "going ahead :" that is, building up the Future 
out of itself and not out of the past. We don't wait for the Future, 
we rush in pursuit of it. 



The higher the sphere the greater the freedom. Mineral, 
vegetable, animal ; zoophite, reptile, quadruped, man ; savage, 
barbarian, civilized. Each of these series is an ascension towards 
freedom, the highest being the freest. 



Religion, above all things, needs to be steadied and purified by 
science and culture. 



Classification i^ the highest function of intellect ; it brings order 
out of chaos. It is both analysis and synthesis. The higher the 
department of universal life, the keener of course must be the in- 
tellectual insight that could detect its organic law. To order 
minerals is feebler work than to order morals. The man who 
classes, needs to have a kind of creative mastery over his material. 
He intellectually recreates it. The savage, who has mastery 
over nothing, but is a brute serf of Nature, has scarcely any 
power of classification. 



Thought is ever unfolding. A good thinker keeps thinking. 



As with the body 'tis a sign of derangement, if the action of 



FRAGMENTS. 181 

any organ makes itself felt, the motions of the heart, for exam- 
ple, or the laboring of the stomach ; so too with the mind, the 
protracted consciousness of any feeling is unhealthy, whether it 
be the religious sentiment or the lust of revenge. 



Who fears the forces of Nature ? We use them for our profit : 
the stronger they are, the more profitable we make them. The 
passions of man, all his feelings, impulses and motives to action, 
are similarly innocent and available. They are the strongest 
forces and instruments in Nature. We must learn only to use 
them. 



We must be realists, not dreamers ; we must found our con- 
victions on facts, not on imaginations which are dream-like. 
Nothing is nobler than facts. Facts are God's ; imaginations are 
man's, and are only then god-like, when they enfold coming or 
possible facts, or adorn existing ones. 



The spokes of the wheel are helpless until bound together by 
the rim. 



Christianity promises such moral splendors, that men, refusing 
to credit these as an earthly possibility, translate its consumma- 
tions to the super-mundane sphere. Priestcraft has always fos- 
tered this incredulity, which opens to it the imagination as its 
work-field, where the tillage is much lighter than on a tangible 
soil. It is easier to saw air than to saw wood ; easier to put the 
wretched off with sanctimonious assurances of celestial compen- 
sations, than to wrestle with earthly ills, and by wisely opposing, 
end them ; easier to preach of Fleaven to come, than to put hand 
to work to drive off a present hell. The conscientious pastor 
knows, how almost fruitless a task it is, when, not content with 
stale ritual repetitions and wordy exhortations, he labors practi- 



182 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

cally to purge and vivify his flock. With all his toil he brings 
little to pass. His theological tools are dull ; what steel there 
ever was in them is worn off. 



Nature rejects with contempt an hereditary aristocracy. 



In our present mis-organized society, helplessness is the con- 
dition, not of nine in ten, but of all. The wisest and wealthiest 
are encompassed by exposure, dangers, calamity. Against earthly 
troubles, resignation and ultra-terrene expectation are a poor re- 
source, as illogical as. meagre. What is done on earth is of our 
own making or allowing. Heaven is just, and inflicts naught. 
It lets us do for our good or evil, and when we help ourselves, 
helps us. Put we our shoulders to the wheel, the Hercules is 
instantly at our side. We make the beds we lie in ; not you or 
I, but you and I, and all the you's and I's that surround us. 
Against our needs and woes, you or I can do little, but you and 
I, everything. Association, which has made railroads and banks, 
can do much better and higher. 



As its roots spread and strike down, the tree expands and 
mounts. Thoughts and aims are only then sound, when their 
roots are firm in the earth. The rest is brain-sick fancy, con- 
ceited" delusion. The earth and our bodies are for the mind and 
heart to grow and revel in., When we would sacrifice the God- 
given earth and its joys to a tinsel manufacture which we mis- 
call 'Heaven, we stigmatize Providence, and supplant it with our 
puling fantasies. 

But people do not so sacrifice ; they only make themselves 
bootlessly wretched by vainly striving to do so. This short- 
sighted effort is for the behoof of the priest, who, three times in 
four, is but a broker who drives a belly-filling business by ex- 



FRAGMENTS. 183 

changing drafts on the next world for coin that buys the comforts 
of this. 



There is nothing that some people are more ignorant of, than 
their own ignorance. 



The classification of England's inhabitants into nobility, gen- 
try, shop-keepers, mechanics, laborers, paupers, is as consonant to 
nature as would be the classing of animals according to weight 

and color. 

v 

Fourier undertakes to make all men honest. No wonder that 
he is looked upon as a visionary, who promises so stupendous a 
revolution in human affairs. 



An unsightly object is an old face haunted by the vices of 
youth. 



Credulity is a characteristic of weakness. Imagination pre- 
cedes Reason. Fancies are a loose substitute for knowledge. 
Hence the unreasonable creeds of young nations, fastened upon 
them by priestcraft, whose criminal practice it has been, and is 
still, by terrifying the imagination to subjugate the reason. The 
first-born of priestcraft was the Devil. 



Priests are ever shuffling over the leaves of old books : the 
life there may be in these they petrify with their own hardness : 
they seek God in traditions and hearsays, and the dim utterances 
of the livers of old : they abide by the outgivings of obsolete 
mystics : they re-assert the beliefs of antiquated seers : the ecs- 
tasies of feverish hallucination they endorse as imperative dog- 
mas. They grovel and grope in the darkness and dawn, to find 
stakes planted by the crude beginners of the world, to the which, 



184 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

by grossest cords, they would bind to the past our forward-reach- 
ing souls. The future, too, they suborn and would monopolize : 
with their contemptible Heavens and ridiculous Hells, they would 
captivate our hopes and our fears. Out of imaginations that are 
shallow, unhallowed, meagre, foul, they iixipudently construct 
both the past and the future. That they may be paid for fur- 
nishing rush-lights, they cultivate darkness, and be-curtain with 
creeds and dogmas the human tabernacle against the sun of truth. 
Those who appeal to the God of light, and to the upright soul 
of man, against their sophistications and usurpations, they cru- 
cify. Audaciously they dub themselves the ministers of God, 
they who are especially not God's ministers but men's. Spir- 
itual insight, moral elevation, rich sympathies, these are the 
tokens whereby the divinely ordained are signalized. Are can- 
didates for any priesthood admitted or rejected by these signs ? 
Not by inborn superiorities of sensibility, but by acquired pro- 
ficiencies, by intellectual adoptions are they tested. This creed, 
these articles, this ritual, — do they accept these, then are they 
accepted. To be learned in humanity, a living learning, which 
the large heart imbibes without labor, this is not their title ; but 
to be learned in theology, a lifeless learning, which the small 
head can acquire by methodical effort. -They would live and 
make others live by the dead letter, and not by the living lavv. 
The dead letter is the carcass of what has been, or what is ima- 
gined to have been. The living law is what is : it is not written, 
it is forever being written on the heart of man by the hand ot 
God. 



What by defect of harmonious organization Christenctem waste 
of nervous power would vitalize a planet. 



Machinery and the useful Arts are man's inventions for indus 
trial helps. The Fine Arts he creates for cesthetic helps. 



FRAGMENTS. 185 

Disproportion is disqualification. Too much is unwieldy : too 
little is feebleness. A giant is of no more use than a dwarf. A 
man seven feet high finds his extra foot a daily incumbrance. 
A man of more head than heart is dangerous : a man of more 
heart than head is a victim. 



Every deed of man is preceded by a thought. In the most 
trivial movement, immaterial action is the antecedent and pro- 
ducer of the material. Every result brought about by human 
contrivance and will is an embodied finishing whose beginning is 
a spiritual seed sown in the brain. No grossest act but existed 
first in thought before it took body. Without thinking, a man 
would go without his dinner. Every act proves a precedent 
thought. This is an absolute law of the mind. As all human 
acts pre-suppose human thought, so superhuman acts pre-suppose 
superhuman thought. A man is a superhuman act, and the ex- 
istence of a man demonstrates the pre-existence of God. 



THE END. 



SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE 



Ambleside, Westmoreland County, England, 
July 29th, 1840, Wednesday Evening 

My Dear : 

Three weeks since, I was in America : I am now writing to 
you from an English village, distant but a mile from the dwelling 
of Wordsworth. Between noon and evening we have come to-day 
ninety miles ; first by railroad from Liverpool to Lancaster, 
where we took outside seats on a coach to Kendall, and thence 
by postchaise fourteen miles to Ambleside. An American just 
landed in England wants more than his two eyes to look at the 
beautiful, green "old country." For several miles the road lay 
along the bank of Lake Windermere, sleeping in the evening 
shadows at the feet of its mountains, whose peaks were shrouded 
in mist, except that of Nabscar, on whose southern side near its 
base stands the Poet's house. 

So soon as we were established in the clean little inn, I walked 
out, about eight o'clock, on the road that passes Wordsworth's 
door. Meeting a countryman, when I had been afoot ten or fifteen 
minutes, I asked him, — " How far is it to Mr. Wordsworth's ?" 
" Only a quarter of a mile." The wood-skirted road wound 
among gentle hills, that on one side ran quickly up into mountains, 
so that the house was not in view ; and having resolved not to 
seek him till to-morrow, I turned back with the tall laborer, who 
told me he was working at Wordsworth's. We passed a lady 
and gentleman on foot, who both gave a friendly salutation to my 
companion. " That," said he, " is Mr. Wordsworth's daughter." 

2 



SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



. Thursday Evening. 

This morning, at ten, Nabscar still wore his nightcap of mist, 
but as the wind then hauled, in sailor's phrase, to the north from 
the southwest, which is the rainy quarter here, he was robed 
before noon in sunshine, to welcome on his breast a far-travelled 
homager. 

I spent an hour to-day with Wordsworth. His look, talk, and 
bearing, are just what a lover of his works would wish to find 
them. His manner is simple, earnest, manly. The noble head, 
large Roman nose, deep voice, and tall spare figure, make up an 
exterior that well befits him. He talked freely on topics that natu- 
rally came up on the occasion. He proposed that we should 
walk out into his grounds. What a site for a poet's abode ! One 
more beautiful the earth could scarcely offer. A few acres give 
shifting views of the Paradise about him, embracing the two lakes 
of Windermere and Grasmere. Would th^t you could have 
heard him sum up in hearty English the characteristics of the 
bounteous scene ! We passed a small field of newly-cut hay, 
which laborers were turning ; — " I have been at work there this 
morning," said Wordsworth, " and heated myself more than was 
prudent." In the garden a blackbird ran across our path : " I 
like birds better than fruit," said he ; " they eat up my fruit, but 
repay me with their songs." By those ■who, like you, appreciate 
Wordsworth, these trifles will be prized as significant of his 
habits. I would not record them, did I believe that himself,— 
with knowledge of the feelings which to us make them valuable,— 
would regard the record as a violation of the sacred privacy of 
his home. A literary caterer might have seized upon much that 
would better have served a gossiping hireling's purpose. 

Satcrday, August 1st, 1840. 

Yesterday evening we spent three hours at Rydal Mount, the 
name not of the mountain near whose base is Wordsworth's 



WORDSWORTH. 



dwelling, but o^ the dwelling itself. We went, by invitation, 
early. Wordsworth, soon after we arrived, familiarly took me 
through the back gate of his enclosure, to point out the path by 
which I might ascend to the top of Nabscar, — a feat I purposed 
attempting the next day. On our return, he proposed a visit to 
Rydal Fall, a few hundred yards from his door in Rydal Park.^ 
On learning that five weeks since we had stood before Niagara, 
an exclamation burst from his lips, as if the sublime spectacle 
were suddenly brought near to him. " But, come," said he, after 
a moment, " I am not afraid to show you Rydal Fall, though you 
have so lately seen Niagara." As for part of the way he walked 
before us in his thick shoes, his large head somewhat inclined 
forward, occasionally calling our looks to tree or shrub, I had 
him, as he doubtless is in his solitary rambles for hours daily, in 
habitual meditation, greeting as he passes many a flower and 
sounding bough, and pausing at times from self-communion, to 
bare his mind to the glories of sky and earth which ennoble his 
chosen abode. 

At the end of our walk a short descent brought us to the door 
of a small, stone, wood-embowered structure, the vestibule, as it 
were, to the temple. Entering, the waterfall was before us, 
beheld through a large regular oblong opening or window which 
made a frame to the natural picture. The fall was not of more 
than twenty-five feet, and the stream only a large brook, but from 
the happiest conjunction of water, rock and foliage ; of color, 
form, sound and silvan still life ; resulted a scene, decked by 
nature so choicely, and with such delicate harmony, that you felt 
yourself in one of Beauty's most perfect abiding-places. The 
deep voice of Wordsworth mingled at intervals with the sound of 
the fall. We left the spot to return to his house. The evening 
was calm and sunny ; we were in an English Park in the bosom 
of mountains ; we had come from a spot sanctified by Beauty, 
and Wordsworth walked beside us. 



SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



The walls of the drawing-room and library„connected by a 
• door, in which, with the affable kindness of a refined gentlewo- 
man, Mrs. Wordsworth received ourselves and a few other guests, 
were covered with books and pictures. AVordsworth showed me 
many editions of the British Poets. He put into my hands a copy 
of the first edition of Paradise Lost, given him by Charles Lamb. 
He spoke copiously, and in terms of admiration, of Alston, whom 
he had known well. In connection with Alston, he mentioned 
his " friend Coleridge." The opportunity thus offered of leading 
him to speak of his great compeer, was marred by one of the 
company giving another turn to the conversation. Wordsworth, 
throughout the evening, was in a fine mood. His talk was clear 
and animated ; at times humorous or narrative. He narrated 
several lively incidents with excellent effect. We sat in the 
long English twilight till past nine o'clock. 

Sunday Mornino, August 2d, 1840. 

Yesterday was pleasantly filled in making an excursion to 
Colistone Lake, in rowing on W^indermere, and in strolling in the 
evening through the meadows around Ambleside. At every 
pause in our walk, the aspect of the landscape varied, under the 
control of the chief feature of the scenery, the encircling moun- 
tains with their vast company of shadows, which, as unconsciously 
changing your position you shift the point of view, open or close 
gorges and valleys, and hide or reveal their own tops, producing 
the effect of a moving panorama. 

But a week since, we were on the ocean, — a month since, in 
the new world, — now, on the beaten sod of the old, young Ameri- 
cans enjoying old England. Every object within sight, raised by 
the hand of man, looks touched with antiquity ; the grey stone wall 
with its coping of moss, the cottage ivy-screened, the Saxon 
church tower. Even what is new, hasn't anew look. The modern 
I'^ansion is mellowed by architecture and tint into keeping with its 



RVDAL CllL'llCH. 5 

■ " — ; "^ 

older neighbors. ^ To be old here, is to be respectable, and time- w 
honored is the epithet most coveted. You see no sign of the 
doings of yesterday or yesteryear : tlie new is careful of obtruding 
itself, and comes into the world under matronage of the old. But 
the footjjrint of age is not traced in rust and decay. We are in 
free and thriving England, where Time's accumulations are 
shaped by a busy, confident, sagacious hand, man co-working 
with Nature at the " ceaseless loom of Time," so that little be 
wasted and little misspent. The English have a strong sympathy 
with rural nature. The capabilities of the landscape are de- 
veloped and assisted with a loving and judicious eye, and the 
beautiful effects are visible not merely in the lordly domain or 
secluded pleasure-ground, where a single mind brings about a 
pre-determincd end, but in the general aspect of the land. The 
hatched cottage, the broad castle, the simple lawn, the luxurious 
park, the scattered hamlet, the compact borough, all the features 
which make up the physiognomy of woody, mossy, rain-washed, 
England, harmonize with nature and with one another. 

Sunday Afternoon, 2 o'clock. 

We walked this morning to Rydal Church, which is within 
almost a stone's throw of Wordsworth's dwelling. Through a 
cloudless sky and the Sabbath stillness, the green landscape 
looked like a corner of Eden. In the small simple church there 
were not more than sixty persons, the congregation, as Words- 
worth told us afterwards, consisting of fourteen families. When 
the service was over, Wordsworth, taking us one under each arm, 
le 1 us up to his house. After a short visit we took our final leave. 

In these three days, I have spent several hours at different 
times with Wordswortli. I have listened to his free and cordial 
talk, walked with him, beheld the beautiful landscape of West- 
moreland with the aidance of his familiar eye, and have been the 
abject of his hospitality, more grateful to me than would be that 



6 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

of his sovereign. The purpose of our visit to Ambleside being 
accomplished, we leave this in half an hour. 

Oxford, Wednesday Mornino, August 5th, 1840. 

A glance at the map of England will show you what a flight 
we 've made since Sunday. For most of the way 't was literally 
a flight, being chiefly by steam. Yet have we had time to tarry 
on the road, and give ourselves up tranquilly without hurry to 
deep and gentle impressions. 

Leaving Ambleside on Sunday afternoon, our road ran for ten 
miles along the eastern shore of Lake Windermere, which lay 
shining at our side, or sparkling through the foliage that shades 
the neat dwellings on its border. From the mountains of the 
lake region we passed suddenly into the flats of Lancashire, and 
at dark reached Lancaster, too late to get a good view of, what 
we had however seen as we went up from Liverpool, the castle, 
founded by 

" Old John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster." 

Between nine and three o'clock on Monday, a railroad bore us 
from Lancaster, on the north-west coast, to Coventry (which Fal- 
staff marched through) in Warwickshire, the very heart of Eng- 
land. We passed through, but did not stop at Birmingham. The 
sight and thought of these great overworked underfed workshops 
are oppressive. An invalid has not the nerves to confront the 
gaunt monster, Poverty, that dragging along its ghastly offspring, 
Squalor and Hunger, stalks so strangely through this abundant 
land. 

There is nothing like a " locomotive " for giving one a first 
vivid view of a country. Those few hours left on my brain a 
clear full image of the face of England, such as can be had by 
no other means. Town, river, village, cottage, castle, set all in 
their native verdure, are so approximated by rapidity of move- 



WARWICK CASTLE. 



inent, as to be easily enclosed by the memory in one frame. The 
ten miles between Coventry and Warwick, a stage-coacli carried 
us on its top, passing through Kenilworth village, and giving us 
a glimpse of the famous ruins. 

Beautiful to behold is England on a sunny summer's day ; so 
clean, so verdant, so full of quiet life, so fresh, wearing so lightly 
tlie garland of age. What a tree ; — that cottage, how fragrant 
it looks through its flowers ; — the turf about that church has been 
green for ages. Here is a thatched hamlet, its open doors lighted 
with rosy faces at the sound of our wheels ; — this avenue of caks 
sets the imagination to building a mansion at the end of it. What 
town is that clustered around yon huge square tower ? and the 
ear welcomes a familiar name, endeared by genius to the Ame- 
rican heart. Such is a half hour of one's progress thi'ough time- 
enriched England, the mother of Shakspeare and Cromwell, of 
Rlilton and Newton. 

Yesterday morning we walked to Warwick Castle, which lies 
just without the town. There stands the magnificent feudal 
giant, shorn of its terrors ; its high embattled turrets dis- 
armed by Time's transmuting inventions ; its grim frowns 
converted to graceful lineaments ; its hoarse -challenges to gentle 
greetings ; there it stands, grand and venerable, on the soft green 
bank of Avon, guarded by man's protecting arm against the level- 
ling blasts of antiquity, not less a token of present grandeur than 
a monument of former glories. As slowly as the impatient 
attendant would let us, we loitered through the broad lofty halls 
and comfortable apartments, from whose walls flash the bright 
heads of Vandyke. Through the deep windows you look down 
into the Avon, which flows by the castle and through the noble 
park. We lingered on the green lawn, enclosed within the castle 
walls, and in the smooth grounds without them, and we hung about 
the towers of the dark old pile until noon, when we walked back 
lo the inn, having enjoyed without drawback, and with more than 



SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



fulfilment of cherished expectations, one of the grandest specta- 
cles old Europe has to offer. 

At one we were approaching Stratford on Avon, distant eight 
miles from Warwick. Fifteen years since I was on the same 
g'iround. But Shakspeare was to me then but a man, to whom 
greatness had been decreed by the world's judgment. I was not 
of an age to have verified for myself his titles : I had not real- 
ized by contemplation the immensity of his power : my soul had 
not been fortified by direct sympathy with his mighty nature. 
But now I felt that I was near the most sacred spot in Europe, 
and I was disappointed at the absence of emotion in my mind. 
Here Shakspeare was born, and here he lies buried. We stood 
above his bones : on the marble slab at our feet, we read the 
lines touching their rest, invoking a curse on him who should 
disturb them. We sat down on a bench within a few feet of the 
sacred dust. We walked out by a near door past tomb-stones 
to the edge of the Avon. The day was serene and bright. We 
returned, and gazed again on the simple slab. 'Twas not till 
we had quitted the church, and were about to pass out of tlie 
yard, that a full consciousness of the holiness of the place arose 
in me. For an instant I seemed to feel the presence of Shak- 
speare. We walked slowly back towards the inn. In this path 
he has walked ; at that sunny corner he has lounged ; — ^but 
'twas like clutching at corporeal substance in a dream, to try to 
call up a familiar image of Shakspeare. Objects around looked 
unsubstantial ; what the senses beheld wore the aspect of a vision ; 
the only reality was the thought of Shakspeare, which wrapped 
the mind in a vague magical sensation. 

Between three and four o'clock we were on the way to Oxford, 
smoothly rolling over an undulating road, under a cloudless sky, 
through the teeming, tree-studded fields. We passed through 
Woodstock, and for several miles skirted the Park of Blenheim. 
'Twas dark ere we entered Oxford. The coach whirled us past 



OXFORD 9 

square upon square of majestic piles and imposing shapes, and 
we aliglited ut the inn, suddenly and strongly impressed with the 
arciiitectural magnificence of Oxford. We are going out to <fet 
a view by sunligiit ere we set off for London, which we are to 
reach before night. 

London, August 10th, 1840. 

From the top of the coach, wliich carried us eight miles to the 
Great Western Railroad, I looked back upon the maje^stic crown 
of towers and spires, wherewith, — as if to honor by a unique prodi- 
gality of its gifts, the high, long enduring seat of learning, — the 
genius of architecture has encircled the brow of Oxford. At a 
speed of thirty to forty-five miles an hour, we shot down to 
Windsor, where we again quitted the railroad for a post-chaise, 
wishing to enter London more tranquilly than by steam. 

By the road from Windsor it is hard to say when you do enter 
London, being encased by houses miles before you reach Picca- 
dilly. Some cities are begirt with walls, some with public walks, 
some merely with water ; but London, it may be said without 
solecism, is surrounded by houses. At last the " West End " 
opens grandly to view through Hyde Park. What a look of 
vastness, of wealth, of solid grandeur ! We are passing the 
house of Wellington, and there to the right, across the Green 
Park and St. James's, are the towers of Westminster Abbey. We 
are in the largest and wealthiest city of the world, the capital of 
the most vast and powerful empire the earth has ever known. 

We can now give but a few days to London, barely enough to 
get a notion of its material dimensions and outward aspects. 
Size, activity, power, opulence, fill Avith confused images the 
wearied brain when the stranger's laborious day is over. The 
streets of London seem interminable ; its private palaces are 
countless ; its population consists of many multitudes. Through 
its avenues flow in counter-currents, from morn till midnight, 

2* 



10 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



the streams which send and receive from the ends of the earth, 
the Hfe-blood of a commerce, whi'ch all climes and continents 
nourish. From witliin its precincts issue words, that, sped to the 
four quai'ters of the globe, are laws to more than one hundred 
millions of men. Thither are the ears of states directed ; and 
when in the Senate, that for ages has had its seat in this still 
growing capital, the prime minister of England speaks, all the 
nations hearken. Of the wealth, strength, bulk, grandeur of the 
realm, London is the centre and palpable evidence. See the 
docks in the morning, and drive round the Parks in the afternoon, 
and you behold the might and magnificence of Britain. 

From this endless throng I was withdrawn yesterday to a scene, 
a sketch of which will, I know, have for you especial interest. 
I drove to Highgate Hill, and alighted at the house of Mr. Gil- 
man. From the servant who opened the door I learnt that he 
had been dead several months. Mrs. Gilman was at home. I 
was shown into a neat back drawing-room, where sat an elderly 
lady in deep mourning. I apologized for having come to her 
house : it was' my only means of getting tidings of one I had 
known well many years before in Gottingen, and who, I was 
aware, had been a friend and pupil of Mr. Coleridge during his 
stay under her roof. She made a sign to the servant to withdraw, 
and then gave way to lier emotion. " All gone, all gone !" were 
the only words she could at first utter. My friend had been dead 
many years, then Coleridge, and lastly her husband. I was much 

moved. Mr. had been a son to her: to have been intimate 

with him was a favorable introduction to herself. She showed 
me several of Mr. Gilman's books, filled with notes in Coleridge's 
handwriting, from which are taken many passages of the " Re- 
mains." In another room was his bust ; and in another a fine 
picture by Alston, given by him to his great friend. She put 
into my hands a sonnet in manuscript, written and sent to her by 



I 



COLR RIDGE. 11 



Alston, on the death of Coleridge, — the most beautiful thing of 
the kind I ever read. 

In the third story is the chamber opened by the most cordial 
and honorable friendship to the illustrious sufferer, and by him 
occupied for many years. There was the bed whereon he died. 
From the window I looked out over a valley upon Caen Wood. 
Here, his lustrous eyes fixed in devout meditation, Coleridge was 
wont to behold the sunset. Mrs. Gilman tired not of talking of 
him, nor I of listening. I thought, how happy, with all his cha- 
grins and disappointments, he had been in finding such friends. 
You recollect with what affection and hearty thankfulness he 
speaks of them. They could sympathize with the philosopher and 
the poet, as well as with the man. Mrs. Oilman's talk told of 
converse with one of England's richest minds. To me it was a 
bright hour, and with feelings of more than esteem for its lonely 
inmate, I quitted the roof where, in his afflicted old age, the author 
of Christabel had found a loving shelter. In a few moments I 
was again in the whirl of the vast metropolis. I shall bear away 
from it no more vivid or grateful recollection than that of yester- 
day's visit. Few men have had more genius than Coleridge, 
more learning, or more uprightness, and in the writings of none 
is there more soul. His poetry will live with his language. As 
a prose writer, he is a conscientious seeker of truth, a luminous 
expounder of the mysteries of life ; and the earnest student of 
his pages, without accepting in full either his Theology, or his 
Philosophy, or his Politics, finds himself warmed, instructed and 
exalted. 

Leamington, September, 1840. 

The day after the date of my last, we left London for Leam- 
ington in Warwickshire, where we have been for a montn. 
There are times when one can neither write nor even read I 
begin ^o fear that I shall not have many moods for work in Bu- 



12 SCENES AND rilOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

rope. To say nothing of health, one's mind is constantly beset 
by superficial temptations. All kinds of trifling novelties impor- 
tune the attention. And even when settled for weeks in the same 
lodging, one is ever possessed by the feeling of instability. 

My reading at Leamington has been chiefly of newspapers. 
From them, however, something inay be learnt by a stranger. 
They reflect the surface of society ; and as surfaces mostly take 
their shape and hue from depths beneath them, one may read in 
newspapers somewhat more than they ai'e paid for printin-jr. Even 
the London " Satirist," that rankest sewer of licentiousness, has 
asocial and political significance. It could only live in the shade 
of an Aristocracy. The stomach of omnivorous scandal were 
alone insufficient to digest its gross facts and fabrications. The 
Peer is dragged through a horse-pond for the sport of the ple- 
beian. The artisan chuckles to see Princes and Nobles wallow- 
ing in dirt, in print. The high are brought so low that the low- 
est can laugh at them : the proud, who live on contempt, are 
pulled down to where themselves can be scorned by the basest. 
The wit consists chiefly in the contrast between the elevation of 
the game and the filthiness of the ammunition wherewith it is 
assailed ; between the brilliancy of the mark and the obscurity 
of the marksman. A register is kept of Bishops, Peeresses, Dukes, 
Ambassadors, charged with being swindlers, adulterers, buffoons, 
panders, sycophants ; and this is one way of keeping Englishmen 
in mind that all men are brothers. It is a weekly sermon, suited 
to some of the circumstances, of the times and people, on the text — 
" But many that are first shall be last." 

England looks everywhere aristocratical. A dominant idea in 
English life is possession by inheritance. Property and privilege 
are nailed by law to names. A man, by force of mind, rises 
from lowliness to a Dukedom : the man dies, but the Dukedom 
lives, and lifts into eminence a dullard perhaps, or a reprobate. 
The soul has departed, and the body ig unburied. Counter to the 



ENGLISH ARISTOCRACY. 13 



order of nature, the external confers instead of receiving life • 
and whereas at first a man made the Dukedom, afterwards 'tis 
the Dukedom that makes the man. Merit rises, but leaves be- 
hind it generations of the unmeritorious not only to feed on its 
gains, but to possess places that should never be filled but by the 
deserving. In an hereditary aristocracy the noble families form 
knots on the trunk of a nation, drawing to themselves sap which, 
for the public health, should be equally distributed. Law and 
custom attach power and influence to names and lands : whoso 
own these, govern, and so rigid and cherished are primogeniture 
and entail, that much of them is possessed without an effort or 
a natural claim. The possessor's whole right is arbitrary and 
artificial. 

To ascribe the short-comings of England to the aristocratic 
principle, were as shallow as to claim for it her many glories. 
In her development it has played its part according to her consti- 
tutional temperament ; but her development has been richer and 
healthier than that of her neighbors, because her aristocracy has 
had its roots in the people, or rather because (a false aristocracy 
having been hitherto in Europe unavoidable) her people have been 
manly and democratic enough not to suffer one distinct in blood 
to rear itself among them. Compare English with any other aris- 
tocracy, and this in it is notable and unique ; it does not form a 
caste. It is not, like the German, or Russian, or Italian, a distinct 
breed from that of the rest of the nation ; nay, its blood is ever 
renewed from the veins of the people. This is the spring of its 
life ; this has kept it in vigor ; this strengthens it against degene- 
racy. It sucks at the breast of the mighty multitude. Hence at 
bottom it is, that the English Peer is in any part of the world a 
higher personage than the German Count or Italian Prince. He 
cannot show pedigrees with them, and this, a cause of mortification 
.0 his pride, is the very source of his superiority. 

Froir. this cause, English Aristocracy is less far removed than 



14 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

any other in Europe from a genuine Aristocracy, or government 
of tlie Best, of wliich, however, it is still but a mockery. It is 
not true that all the talent in the realm gravitates towards the 
House of Lords, but some of it does ; and as such talent is, of 
course, in alliance with worldly ambition, the novi hommes in 
Parliament are apt not to be so eminent for principle as for intellect. 
Until men shall be much purer than they have yet been, no na- 
tion will, under any form of polity, throw up its best n\tn into 
high places. The working of the representative system with us 
has revealed the fact, that with free choice a community chooses 
in the long run men who accurately represent itself. Should 
therefore Utopia lie embosomed in our future, instead of the pre- 
sent very mixed assemblage, our remote posterity may look for a 
Congress that will present a shining level of various excellence. 
Only, that should so blessed an era be in store, Congresses and 
all other cunning contrivances called governments will be super- 
fluous. In England, in legislati(jn and in social life, most of the 
best places are filled by men whose ancestors earned them, and 
not themselves. These block the way to those who, like their 
ancestors, are capable in a fair field of winning eminence. By 
inheritance are enjoyed posts demanding talent, liberality, refine- 
ment — qualities not transmissible. It is subjecting the spiritual 
to the corporeal. It is setting the work of man, Earls and Bish- 
ops, over the work of God, men. The world is ever prone to put 
itself in bondage to the external : laws should aim to counteract 
the tendency. Here this bondage is methodized and legalized. 
The body politic has got to be but feebly organic. Men are 
obliged in every directign to conform rigidly to old forms ; to reach 
their end by mechanical routine. A man on entering life finds 
himself fenced in between ancient walls. Every Englishman is 
free I'elatively to every other living Englishman, but is a slave to 
his forefathers. He must put his neck under the yoke of pre- 
scription. The life of every child in England is too rigorously 



I 



CARLYLE. 15 

predestined. To liim may be addressed the words of Goethe, in 
Faust : — 

Es erben sich Gesets' und Rechte 

Wie eine ew'ge Krankheit fort ; 

Sie schleppen von Geschlecht sich zum Geschlechte, 

Und ruckcn sacht von Ort zu Ort. 

Vernunft wird Unsinn, WohUh'at Plage ; 

Weh dir dass du ein Enkel bist ! 

Vom Rechte, das mil uns geboren ist, 

Von dem ist leider ! nie die Frage.* 

This is a rich theme, which I have merely touched. It is 
pregnant too with comfort to us with our unbridled democracy. 
May it ever remain unbridled. 

Paris, November, 1840. 

On the way from Leamington to France we were again two 
days in London, where I then saw at his house one of the master 
spirits of the age, Mr, Carlyle. His countenance is fresh, his 
bearing simple, and his frequent laugh most hearty. He has a 
wealth of talk, and is shrewd in speech as in print in detecting 
the truth in spite of concealments, and letting the air out of a 
windbeutel. Like the first meeting across the seas with a bounti- 
ful worldly benefactor, — except that the feeling is much finer, 
and admits of no gross admixture, — is that with a man to whom 
you have long been under intellectual obligations. It is one of 
the'heartiest moments a stranger can have abroad. The spirit 
that has been so much with him, has taken flesh and voice. He 
grasps for the first time the hand of an old friend. When in 

* Laws and rights are inherited like an everlasting disease ; they drag 
■ hemselves along from generation to generation, and quietly move from 
place to place. Reason becomes nonsense, blessings become curses ; woe to 
thee that thou art a grandchild ! Of the right that is born with ua, of this, 
alas ! there is no thought 



16 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

London before, I had a good view of the Duke of Wellington, as 
he rode up to his house, at the corner of Hyde Park, and dis- 
mounted ; so that I have seen England's three foremost living 
men, Wordsworth, Wellington, Carlyle. 

On Friday afternoon September 11th, at three o'clock, we left 
London by railroad for Southampton, which we reached at six, 
and crossing the channel by steamboat iu the night, entered ^he 
port of Havre at ten the next morning. The town looked dirty 
at a distance, and is dirtier than it looked. The small craft we 
passed in the harbor were unclean and unwieldy. The streets 
ran filth to a degree that offended both eyes and nose. Knots of 
idle shabby men were standing at corners, gossipping, and look- 
ing at parrots and monkeys exposed for sale. The inn we got 
into, commended as one of the best, was so dirty, that we could 
not bear to face the prospect of a night in it. We hired a 
carriage and started at four with post-horses for Rouen, which 
we reached at midnight. Here we spent Sunday. Rouen is 
finely placed, on the Seine, with lofty hills about it. In the 
Diligence, in which we started early on Monday, to overtake 
fifteen miles up the river, the steamboat to St. Germain, I heard 
a Frenchman say to a Frenchwoman, " Rouen est le pot-de-cham- 
bre de la Normandie." You know of the Cathedral at Rouen 
and of the Maid of Orleans' execution, but this is probably in all 
respects new to you. To me it was also new and satisfactory, 
being an indication that some of the dwellers in this region have 
a consciousness of the presence of stenches. We entered Paris 
in a hard rain at ten o'clock on Monday night. 

The French claim for Paris that it is the most beautiful city in 
the world. From a point on the right bank of the Seine, near the 
bridge leading from the Place de la Concorde, is the finest, and truly 
a noble panoramic view. Standing with your back to the river, 
righl before you is the Place itself, with its glittering fountains 
and Egyptian Obelisk. Directly across it, the eye rests on two 



PARIS. 17 

imposing fagades, which form a grand portal to the Rue Royale, 
at the end whereof, less than half a mile distant, the Church of the 
Madeleine presents its majestic front of Corinthian columns. On 
tlic right the eye runs down the long faqade of the Rue Rivoli, 
cut at right angles' by the Palace of the Tuileries, peering above 
the trees of the Tuileries garden which, with its deep shade and 
Avide walks, lies between you and the Palace. To the right now of 
the garden the vievv sweeps up the river, with its bridges and miles 
of broad quais, and ends in a distant labyrinth of building, out 
of which rises the dark head of Notre Dame de Paris. Near 
you on the opposite, that is, the left bank of the Seine, and face to 
face to the Madeleine, is the imposing Palais dcs EUsees Bourbons, 
now the Hall of the Deputies. To the right the gardens attached 
to the EUsees Bourbons and the ^^rounds of the Hotel des Invalides 
fdl the space near the river on the left bank, and the Champs 
EUsees, at one corner of which you stand, press upon its shore 
on this side, while the view directly down the stream stretches 
into the country. Back now through a full circle to your first 
position, and with the Madeleine again in front, on your left are 
the Champs EUsees, at the other extremity of which, more than a 
mile off, just out of the Neuilly Gate, towers the gigantic Imperial 
Arch of Triumph built by Napoleon. But to get the best view of 
tliis magnificent Colossus, you must advance to the centre of the 
Place de la Concorde, where, from the foot of tlie Obelisk, with 
your back to the Tuileries, you behold it closing the chief 
Avenue of the Champs EUsees, and, by the elevation of the 
ground and its own loftiness, standin-g alone, the grandest monu- 
ment of the French Capital. 

A rare and most effective combination this, of objects and 
aspects. From no other city can there be embraced from a sin- 
gle point an equal extent, variety and grandeur. There are 
similar but less striking views from sevei'al other open spots. 

From the general deficiency of good architecture, large cities 



18 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

show best when, from the banks of a river or broad open squares, 
they can be beheld in long distant masses. Paris gains hereby 
especially, as, from the habits of the people, not only are the 
streets dirtier than need be, but the basements are mostly un- 
sightly and often disgusting ; and the faces generally, even of 
massive buildings, with architectural pretensions, have an un- 
washed and ragged look. 

Paris, March, 1841. 

A Frenchman, more than other men, is dependent upon things 
without himself. Nature and his own mind, with domestic inte- 
rests and recreations, are not enough to complete his daily circle. 
For his best enjoyment he must have a succession of factitious 
excitements. Out of this want Paris has grown to be the capital 
of the world for superficial amusements. Here are the appli- 
ances, — multiplied and diversified with the keenest refinement of 
sensual ingenuity, — for keeping the mind busy without labor and 
fascinated without sensibility. The senses are beset with piquant 
baits. Whoever has money in his purse, and can satisfy through 
gold his chief .wants, need have little thought of the day or the 
year. He finds a life all prepared for him, and selects it, as he 
does his dinner from the voluminous carte of the Restaurant. 
To live, is for him as easy as to make music on a hand-organ : 
with but slight physical effort from himself, he is borne along from 
week to week and from season to season on an unresting current 
of diversions. Here the sensual can pass years without satiety, 
and the slothful without ennui. Paris is the Elysium of the idler, 
and for barren minds a Paradise. 

When I first arrived, I went almost nightly to some one of the 
many theatres. I soon tired of the smaller where, mostly, licen- 
tious intrigue and fabulous liberality alternate with farce to keep 
the attention awake through two or three acts of commonplace. 
At the Theatre Frangais, I saw Moliere and Rachel. It is no 



RACHEL 19 

ilisparageinciit ot" Moliere to call him a truncated Shakspcare. 
Tlie naturalness, vigor, comic sense, practical insight and scenic 
life of Shakspeare he has ; without Shakspeare's purple glow, 
his reach of imagination and ample intellectual grasp, which 
latter supreme qualities shoot light down into the former subordi- 
nate ones, and thus impart to Shakspeare's comic and lowest per- 
sonages a poetic soul, which raises and refines them, the want 
whereof in Moliere makes his low characters border on faice 
and his highest prosaic. 

Rachel is wonderful. Slie is on the stage an embodied radi- 
ance. Her body seems inwardly illuminated. Conceive a Greek 
statue endued with speech and mobility, for the purpose of giving 
utterance to a profound soul stirred to its depths, and you have an 
image of the magic union in her personations of fervor and grace. 
Till I heard her, I never fully valued the might of elocution. She 
goes right to the heart by dint of intonation ; just as, with his arm 
ever steady, the fencer deals or parries death by the mere motion 
of his wrist. Phrases, words, syllables, grow plastic, swell or 
contract, come pulsing with life, as they issue from her lips. Her 
head is superb ; oval, full, lai'ge, compact, powerful. She cannot 
be said to have beauty of face or figure ; yet the most beautiful 
woman were powerless to divert from her the eyes of the specta- 
tor. Her spiritual beauty is there more bewitching than can be 
the corporeal. When in the Horaces she utters the curse, it is as 
though the whole electricity of a tempest played through her 
arteries. It is not Corneille's Camille, or Racine's Hermione, 
solely that you behold, it is a dazzling incarnation of a human 
soul. 

Through Rachel I have seen the chefs-d'oeuvre of Corneille 
and Racine, reproduced by her on the French stage, whence, smce 
the death of Talma, they had been banished. 

Witliout creation of cliaracter, there is no genuine drama. So 
vivid and individual should be the personages, that out of their 



20 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

feelings and acts the drama evolves itself, under the guidance of 
judgment and the purification of poetry. Without such individu- 
ality and productive vitality in the characters, poetry, sentiment, 
action, fail of their effect in the dramatic form. The personages 
of the French Theatre are not creations, they are transplantations. 
Corneille and Racine took in hand the tragic subjects of antiquity, 
but they did not re-animate them. Agamemnon and Augustus 
owe nothing to their Gallic parents ; their souls are rjot swelled 
with thoughts beyond a Greek or Roman age. Measure them 
with Shakspeare's Coriolanus, or Anthony, or Brutus, and they 
are marrowless, Shakspeare has so vivified his Romans, that the 
pages of history, whence they are taken, pale by the side of them. 
The French appear not to have had depth enough to produce 
an original tragic Drama. The tragic material, — whereof senti- 
ment is as essential an element as passion. — is meagre in them, 
compared with the Germans or English ; hence the possibility 
and even necessity of a simpler plot and a measured regularity. 
Corneille or Racine could not have wrought a tragedy out of a 
tradition or a modern fable : they require a familiarized historical 
subject. The nature of French Tragedy, compared with Eng- 
lish, is happily illustrated by the Hamlet of Ducis, which I 
have seen played at the Theatre Frangais. The title of the piece 
is, " Hamlet, Tragedie en 5 acts, imitee de I'Anglais par Ducis." 
A fitter title were, " Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet left out, by 
particular desire of Fi'ench taste." It is as much an imitation 
of Shakspeare, as straight walks and parallel lines of trees are an 
imitation of Nature. Hamlet is resolved into a tender-hearted 
affectionate son. He has not been put aside, but is king. Ophe- 
lia does anything but go mad. The mother is overwhelmed with 
remorse for the murder, which she confesses to a confidant. The 
heart of Hamlet's mystery is plucked out. The poetry is flat- 
tened into phrases. The billowy sea of Shakspeare is belittled to 



FRExNCH TRAGEDY. 21 



a smooth pond, in every part whereof you can touch bottom. It 
is not deep enough to dive in. 

It is tlio nature of high poetry to bind tlie individual to 
the universal. Corneille and Racine live in a middle atmo- 
s|)here between the two. They have not the rich sensibility, 
which, united on the one hand to high reason, reveals to the poet 
the primal laws of being, and on the other with powers of minute 
observation, imparts liveliness to his embodiments. They are 
neither minute nor comprehensive ; hence their personages are 
vague and prosaic. The highest quality of their tragedies is a 
refined and skilful rheioric. Their verse is like bas-relief; the 
parts follow one another in a graceful well-joined sequence ; but 
there is no perspective, no deep vistas, breeding as you pass them 
suggestions and subtle sensations. Their personages leave nothing 
to your imagination ; they are terrible egotists ; they do most 
thoi'oughly "unpack their souls with words;" they give measured 
speech to feelings which at most should find but broken utter- 
ance. 

French Tragedy is not primitive. With laborious skill their 
tragic writers re-cast old materials. In Polyeucte Corneille throws 
a deeper line, but attains to no greater individuality of charac- 
terization, nor is he less declamatory than in his Roman pieces. 
Both he and Racine are more epic than dramatic. The French 
language, moulded by the mental character of a nation wanting 
in depth of sensibility, is not a medium for the highest species of 
poetry, and had Corneille and Racine been poets of the first order, 
they would either have re-fused the language, so that it would have 
flowed readily into all the forms forged by the concurrent action 
of sensibility and thought, or, failing in that, they would, like 
Rabelais, have betaken themselves to more obedient prose. Mo- 
Here had not a highly poetic mind, and he wrote verse evidently 
witli uncommon ease; and, nevertheless, 1 doubt not that even to 
him the Alexandrine was a shackle ; and although Corneille and 



22 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Ra(3iiie cannot be rated among the first class of poets, I think too 
well of them not to believe, that by it their flight was greatly- 
circumscribed. French verse, which requires a delicate attention 
to metre or the mechanical constituent, affords little scope for 
rhythm, and is therefore a hindrance rather than a furtherance 
to the true poet. In other cultivated languages the form meets 
the substance half-way — is, as it were, on the Watch for it; so 
that tlie English, or Italian, or German poet, far from being im- 
peded by the versification of his thoughts as they rise, finds him- 
self thereby facilitated, the metre embracing the poetic matter 
with such closeness and alacrity as to encourage and accelerate 
its production and utterance. Hence in French literature the 
poets are not the highest names. Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, 
Goethe, are supreme in their respective lands ; not so Corneille 
or Racine. 

The Frenchman who, as thinker and creator, may best claim 
to rank with the poet-thinkers of other nations, did not write in 
verse. Rabelais was a master-mind. His buffoonery and smut 
are justified by Coleridge, as being a necessary vehicle in his age 
for the conveyance of truth. As it was, he is said to have owed 
his liberty and even life to the favor of Francis I. I suspect thai 
he was naturally so constructed as to wear willingly such a mask. 
His great work presents a whole of the most grotesque humor, 
which may be defined, the shadow caused by the light of the spiritual 
falling on the animal through the medium of the_comic. Rabelais's 
full animal nature and broad understanding presented a solid and 
variegated mass of the low and corporeal for the sun of his 
searching reason and high spirituality to shine upon, and the 
shadows resulting are broad and deep. The two natures of beast 
and man seem in him to ineasure their strength, for the entertain- 
ment of the Comic, which stands by and sets them on. 

Pascal is the only French writer I know in whom there is the 
greatness that results from purity and depth, the contact where. 



VOLTAIRE. 23 



with lifts one up and kindles emotions which possess the soul like 
a heavenly visitation, banishing for a time whatever thei'e is in one 
of little or unworthy. 

Carlyle calls Voltaire the most French of Frenchmen. I will 
not do the French the injustice to call him the greatest, though 
doubtless most of his contemporaries so esteemed him. He was 
tlie leader of a generation whose necessary calling was to deny 
and destroy. His country panted under a monstrous accumulation 
of spiritual and civil usurpations : he wielded the sharpest axe in 
the humane work of demolition. His powers were great and his 
labors immense ; and yet there were in him such deficiencies, as 
to defeat the attainment of completeness in any one of his various 
literary undertakings. Voltaire had not soul enough to put him 
in direct communication with the heart of the Universe. What- 
ever implied emotion, came to him at second-hand, through his 
intellect. He was not a great poet, a creator ; he was a great 
demolisher. Let him have thanks for much that he did in that 
capacity. 

I record with diffidence these brief judgments, for I have made 
no wide and thorough study of French Literature. It does not 
take hold of me : it lacks soul. Of the present generation of 
writei's I am still less qualified to speak, having read but par- 
tially of any one of them. They don't draw me into intimacy. 
It is a peculiarly grateful state of mind when, on laying down a 
fresh volume, you resolve to possess yourself of all that its author 
has written. You feel like one who has found a new friend. I 
have not yet met with the French writer who gives me assurance 
of this permanent enjoyment. I refer more particularly to works 
belonging to the provinces of creation and criticism, else I should 
mention Tjiierry, whose volume entitled Lettres sur VHisioire de la 
France seems to me a masterpiece of historical research and 
political acutoness. The authors whose names have lately most 
Bounded abroad, Guizot, Cousin, Villemain, want vitality. Their 



24 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

writings, to use a phrase of Dr. Johnson, come from reservoirs, 
not springs, Thierry is of a higher order. In La Mennais is the 
will and noble aim, without the power and accomplishment. The 
'romantic dramas of Hugo and others, simmering with black law- 
less passion, are opaque as well as shallow, and empty of poetry. 
They have much more sound than substance, more fury than 
force. The new French Literature is yet to come into being. 

The French beat the world in milliners, in tailors, in porcelain, 
in upholstery, in furniture ; their or molu is unrivalled, so are 
their mousselines and silks ; but not so is their painting, or their 
sculpture, or their music, or their poetry. In the ornamental 
they are unequalled, but not in the creative. Their sphere is the 
artificial and conventional : their sympathy with nature is not 
direct and intense. Their Ideal in Art is not the result of a warm 
embrace with nature, but of a methodical study of established 
masters. With their poets and artists the aim and motive in 
labor is too much the approval of Paris, where humanity is so 
bedizened by artifice, that the smile and melody of nature are 
scarce discernible. 

I saw Napoleon's funeral, a showy martial pageant, befitting 
the Imperial soldier. The escort was a hundred thousand armed 
men ; the followers, half a million of both sexes. For hours, 
the broad long avenue of the Champs Elisees was choked with 
the moving throng. It was a solemn moment when the funeral 
car came slowly by. There, within a few feet, lay the body of 
the man, the tramp of whose legions had been mournfully heard 
in every great capital of the continent ; whose words had been 
more than the breath of a dozen kings. His shrivelled dust passed 
through triumphal arches and columns, emblazoned with the re- 
cord of his hundred conquests. Of them, there was nothing lefl; 
to France but the name, — of him, nothing but those cold remains. 
Not even a living member of his line was present, sadly to share 
in this tardy show of honor. The day was cold and so were the 



NAPOLEON. 29 



hearts of the multitude. Those bones, let out of their ocean 
prison, brought with them no hope for the nation. When they 
are buried, there will be an end of Napoleon. His name will 
hereafter be but a gorgeous emptiness : his memory is not vitalized 
Dy a principle. In his aims there lay no deep hope, whence his 
follow men, battling for rights, might for ever draw courage and 
Btrength. While he still lived, his schemes were baffled, and 
what he founded had already passed away. His plans were all 
for himself, and hence with liimself they fell, and left scArce a 
trace behind. He gave birth to no great Ideas, that, fructifying 
among men, would have built for him in their souls an everlasting 
home. He saw not into the depths of truth, and he knew not its 
unequalled might. Therefore, with all his power he was weak : 
naught of what he wished came to pass, and what he did with 
such fiery vehemence, with still more startling swiftness was 
undone. His thoughts were not in harmony with the counsels 
of God, and so they perished with himself. The Emperor will 
have his conspicuous place in History, but the man will not live 
in the minds of men. For the most potent king of the Earth, 
what is he, if he be a false man ? That one so false could so rule, 
is a token of the confusion of the times. 

One looks almost in vain for the spots that were the centres of 
the terrific doings of the Revolution. They are mostly so trans- 
formed as to have lost their identity. Time has been quick in 
wiping out the bloody stains. Whoever wishes to bring before 
his mind, on the ground itself, the place of execution, will need 
an imagination intense enough to close the avenues of his senses 
against the garish sights and sounds of the most brilliant public 
square of this gayest of capitals ; for what is now the Place de 
let Concorde, with its lively gilt fountains and rattling equipages, 
was once the Place de la Revolution, where blood streamed daily 
under the axe of the headsman. If, then, he can succeed in call- 
ing up the Guillotine, with its pale victims and exulting throng 

3 



26 SCENES AND THOUGHTS m EUROPE. 

of savage spectators, it will be easier for the timid to shudder at 
its butcheries, than for the thinker to solve the problem of their 
permission. Through the tears and woes of man, the deep laws 
of Providence march on to their mysterious fulfilment. One may 
believe, that to a people so brutified by tyranny, so despoiled of 
natural rights, was needed the swiftest sweep of authority, the 
broadest exhibition of power, the grossest verification of escape 
from bondage, in order to vindicate at last and for ever their hu- 
man claim to a will. 

The French people, according to report of those who have 
known them in both periods, are more earnest and substantial 
than they were two generations back. They think and feel more, 
and talk less. There must be hope for a nation that could erect 
itself as this did, scatter with a tempest the rooted rubbish of 
ages, overturn half the thrones of Europe, and though re-con- 
quered through the very spirit of freedom that at first had made 
itself invincible, once more at the end of a half century, rend 
the old re-imposed fetters and stand firmly on a blood-purchased 
ground of liberty, — liberty, in comparison with its civil and so- 
cial condition sixty years ago. For neither was the se'cond Revo- 
lution any more than the first the beginning of popular rule : it 
was the end of unpopular misrule. The mass of the French 
people have still no direct agency in the government. One of 
the two legislative bodies, as you are aware, the Chamber of 
Deputies, is chosen by about two hundred thousand electors out 
of a population that numbers five millions of male adults ; the 
other, the Chamber of Peers, is created by the king, — a monstrous 
anomaly, and an insulting mockery. If the revolution of the 
three days was a protest against monarchical predominance and 
military coercion, Louis Philippe misrepresents it most flagrantly. 
By the army is he upheld, not by the nation. I have seen him, 
going to open the session of the legislature, closely guarded by 
twenty thousand bayonets. What the purpose is of the fortifica. 



PRESENT GOVERNMENT. 27 

tion of Paris, will become palpable in some future revolution. 
If the tens of millions buried under this vast cincture, destined to 
be levelled by popular wrath, had been expended upon railroads 
radiating from the capital (not to mention higher national wants), 
Paris would have been rendered impregnable, and France greatly- 
forwarded in wealth and civilisation. The " throne surrounded 
by republican institutions," promised by Lafayette when he made 
Louis Philippe king, was the groundless hope of a veteran pa* 
triot; too single-minded to have forgotten the dream of his youth, 
and too short-sighted to discern how far it was then from realiza- 
tion. The fulfilment of the promise he confided to one, whose 
mental construction was the very opposite of his own, as well in- 
tellectually as morally. 

The present is a government of bayonets tempered by the 
Press. The Press, though not quite free, is an immense power, 
and its growth is a measure of French progress in sixty years. 
The people, though far yet from that maturity which self-govern- 
ment implies, do not require the semi-military rule of the Orleans 
Dynasty. Yet are their bonds not so heavy and tight but that 
they have in some directions quite a wide range of movement. 
And they have a healthful abiding consciousness of their power 
to pull down the state, if ever again it should become grossly 
oppressive. It is utterly incalculable, what, by two such tri- 
umphant efforts as their two revolutions, a people gains in self- 
respect, and self-reliance, and hopeful self-trust, the basis of all 
moral superstructure, and therefore of all permanent self-govern- 
ment. 

Antwerf, iTlne, 1841. 

In France there is little rural beauty. The country looks 
bald and meagre and lifeless. No cluinps of trees, nor rose- 
sweetened cottages, nor shaily hamlets, betokening snug fire- 
sides and a quiet sympathy with nature. 'Twas cheering to get. 



28 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

into Belgium. Here were the marks of a deeper order and more 
intelligent labor. On all sides cleanliness and thrift. The 
sightly, compact towns looked full of well-husbanded resources. 
From Courtrai, near the borders of France, to Antwerp, we 
passed, by railroad, for sixty miles through what seemed a fair 
rich garden, so smooth and minute is the tillage. The soil looked 
grateful to its working. 

It would almost appear that there had been a defeat of Nature's 
intent in this quarter of Europe ; a territory has been split, 
which was so naturally adapted for unity. One cannot help 
thinkincr it a pity the Burgundian sovereignty had not lasted. 
Where there are now discordant French, Belgians, and Dutch, 
there might have been one homogeneous people of eight or ten' 
millions, with breadth of territory, and strength and variety of 
resources, sufficient for an ample national development. Just at 
the period, towards the end of the fifteenth century, wlien a nation 
was forming and about to be knit together by Literature and the 
Arts, — for which it exhibited such aptitude, — the whole country, 
by the marriage of the heiress of the last of the Burgundians, 
passed into the hands of Austria, and thence by Charles V. was 
left to his son, Philip II. of Spain. The high spirit of the people 
would not brook the cruelties of this tyrant and his creature 
Alba, who wished to establish among them the Inquisition, that 
masterpiece of Satan's most inventive mood. In the famous 
revolt, only the northern provinces were successful. Belgium 
remained under the dominion of Spain a century longer, when it 
was re-transferred to Austria, from which it was finally wrested 
in the French Revolution, to be first incorporated into France, and 
then by the Congress of Vienna reunited, after a divorce of more 
than two centuries, to Holland. But during that long separation, 
the two, living under totally different influeiK;es, had naturally 
•contracted habits that were reciprocally hostile. Holland was 
Protestant, Belgium, Catholic; and the language, which, under a 



permanent union, might have been unfolded by the wants of a 
vigorous nation to tal:e rank by the side of the cognate German, 
was brol<en into dialects, that of Holland becoming cultivated 
enough to be the medium of some literature, that of Belgium 
remaining the half-grown speech of the peasants and Bourgeois, 
and giving place in salons and palaces to the more refined tongue 
of its overshadowing Southern neighbor. It was now too late to 
make one nation of the Netherlands, and so, the marriage, 
brought about by noiglibors through persuasions too well backed 
by power to be withstood, was soon dissolved, and Belgium was 
erected into an independent monarchy, under a new king, by the 
tide of Holland, or, I should say, a separate monarchy; for when 
united, they had not tlie strength for independence, and now of 
course will even the more readily fall victims of greedy neigh- 
Dors, whenever the beam of that very unsteady fixture called the 
Balance of power shall be kicked. 

Antwerp has still mucU of the wealth and beauty it inherited 
from the olden time, when, witli its two hundred thousand inha- 
oitants, it was, in commerce and opulence, the first among the 
cities of Europe ; and its merchant princes built up cathedrals 
and squares and palaces, for Rubens and Vandyke to people out 
oi" tlicir procreative brains. The population is reduced now to 
seventy or eighty thousand, the port is content with a hundred 
vessels at a time instead of two thousand ; but the broad clean 
streets bordered with stately mansions are still here, and the 
cathedral, whose spire alone is a dower for a province; and the 
inhabitants, yet rich in fat lands and well-filled cofiiers, are still 
richer in the possession of some of the fairest offspring of their 
great fellow-townsman's genius. The potency of genius and art 
is here most forcibly exemplified. Take away Rubens and the 
Cathedral, and Antwerp would not be Antwerp. This tower, 
steadfast, light, fretted with delicate tracery, springing nearly four 
hundred feet from the ground, which it seems to touch no mcr'j 



30 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

heavily than a swan about to take flight, is an unfading beauty 
shining daily on the hearts of the people, while the memory of 
tlubens and his presence in his gigantic handiwork are a perpe- 
tual image of greatness. To the passing stranger they are an 
adornment to the land, but to the natives a stay and brace to the 
very mind itself, keeping ever before them the reality of beauty 
and power, and fortifying them with the consciousness of kindred 
witli genius and greatness. 

Antwerp has at this time high artists, Jacobs, Keyser, Waep- 
pers, who sit under the transparent shadow of this marvellous 
tower, and whose art attains a more juicy maturity in the sun of 
Rubens's genius. Their works sell at high prices as fast as they 
produce them. Love of art, blended in the hearts of the people 
with religion, is an element of their nature. The creations of 
their great painters illuminate the churches, and through the 
incense that ascends from the altar, beam upon tlie upturned 
countenance of the worshipper. In the public Museum are pre- 
served some of the best works of Rubens and Vandyke ; and in 
private dwellings are seen family portraits from their hands, fresh 
from the embalming touch of genius, twice-prized, — by personal 
and by national pride. ' 

In a rich private collection of old books and pictures, I have 
seen a set of engravings, bound up into several huge tomes of the 
greater part of Rubens's works. To behold thus at a single 
view, the collected product of such a spirit's life, is to have in 
one's hand 'a key to much of the mystery of the painter's art. 
This man's mind was an ever-teeming womb of light-dyed forms. 
These were the spontaneous absorbing growth of his brain. With 
him, existence could only be enjoyed, fulfilled, by delivering him- 
self of this urgent brood of brain-engendered pictures. What a 
wealth of invention and inexhaustible vigor ! What fertility, and 
boldness, and breadth and fire ! What opulence and grandeur'of 
imagination ! What skill in the marshalling of liis lejiions ! 



CONTRASTS. 



What life in each head, in each figure, in each group ! And 
what a flood of beauty in liis coloring ! 'Tis as if, for his great 
pictures, lie had gathered into his brain the hues of a gorgeous 
sunset, and poured them upon the canvas. 

Among the features wherein old Europe differs from young 
America, none is more prominent than the large number of idlers 
in Europe. Capital being wanting in the United States, almost 
the universal energy is busied in supplying it ; in Europe it is 
abundant; and many live in industrial unproductiveness upon its 
moderate dividends. With us, it is hardly respectable to be idle ; 
here, only they who are so, enjoy the highest consideration. 
With us, gentility is confined to those who addict themselves to 
certain kinds of labor ; in Europe it excludes all who labor at all, 
except in the highest offices of the State. In " good society" 
here, you meet with neither lawyer, nor merchant, nor physician, 
not even with the clergy, for in Belgium, priests are drawn from 
the peasant and bourgeois classes, and their consecration is not 
believed to confer upon them nobility. Birth has hitherto been 
an almost indispensable passport into the highest circles, but 
money, aided by the stealthy progress of democratic ideas, is 
making breaches in the aristocratic entrenchments, and ere many 
generations, " good society" in Europe will present somethinglike 
the motley concourse that it does with us, where, the social ar- 
rangements having no support from the political, old families 
go down and new ones come up, and the power of a man oii 
'Change is often the measure of his position in fashionable draw- 
ing-rooms. This is but the chaos of transition : the soul will in 
time assert its transcendant privileges. 

In Europe, notwithstanding occasional intermarriages, the aris- 
tocratic prestige still prevails against plebeian merit. In social 
longer than in political life, the nobility naturally retain a pre- 
doniinance, that is of course exercised despotically. Although, 
since the invention of printing, the expansion of commerce, and 



32 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

the rapid development of industry and science, knowledge avA 
wealth, the sources of the highest power in communities, have 
been passing out of the hands of the privileged few, still, social 
advantages, depending upon deep-rooted ideas, are the last to be 
forfeited, and the nobility throughout Europe, long after their ex- 
clusion from the high posts in the State, will look down upon tlie 
herd of plebeian aspirants to ton, just as the ancienne noblesse of 
France did upon the military upstarts of Napoleon, and do still 
upon the Court of Louis Philippe. And this from a real superi- 
ority of position. 

The nobility of Europe, — the early, and at first the rightful sole 
possessors of power as the originally strong men ; the acknow- 
ledged monopolists of social elevations ; the dispensers of place 
and patronage ; the recipients and in turn the fountains of honor ; 
in short, the controllers with kings of all high interests and lords 
of etiquette and manners, — acquired, by the cultivation of the 
stateliness growing out of courtly usages and the tone contracted 
from conscious superiority, an easy commanding style of bearing 
and intercourse, which was of a natural inward growth, the un- 
forced expression of their social rank and being. Now, as this 
social rank and being is no longer attainable by others, so neither 
are the modes of life, the style of manners, the segregation from 
the people, which were its natural products. All attempts there- 
fore on the part of those, who, since the breaking up of the mono- 
polies of knowledge and wealth, are now sharing their possession 
with the old nobility, to assume too their bearing and style, are and 
must be a bare assumption, a hollow imitation ; and not merely 
as such an inevitable failure, but one tainted with vulgarity, the 
essence of which is false pretension. So long as another standard 
than the feudal aristocratic is not set up as t!ie measure of social 
position, there will be war between the old regime, which in its 
sphere was a genuine true thing, and the new, which being an 
apery of it, is a false thing. In the end, the old, no longer upheld 



ARISTOCRACY, 33 



by law, impoverished by idleness and debilitated by generations 
of luxurious inactivity, will have to succumb, and become socially 
extinct, or absorbed into the kiumphant new, and pedigrees will 
grow confused, and the imagination cease to invest birth with 
virtue. 

In this conflict will for a time be aggx*avated the most repulsive 
quality of aristocratic life. The feeling of superiority over one's 
fellows, mere personal pride, will be still more cherished. Their 
children are already bred up to look upon themselves as better than 
all other children. Towards their fellow-men a sentiment rather 
of repulsion tlian sympathy is generated in the members of a 
privileged class. Instead of keeping their hearts open with liberal 
susceptibility to worth and excellence, they are ever on the alert 
to fend oft' all others from contact with themselves. They form a 
narrow circle, living to themselves on sympathies of selfishness. 
These feelings, latent while their rank was undisputed, become 
active against plebeian encroachment ; while their plebeian rivals 
and imitators cultivate the same feeling as well from imitation, 
as to strengthen their new state against the aspiring multitude 
still below them. An offspring too of this conflict is Fashion, 
which is an effort to outvie exclusiveness, to be more tonish than 
liaut ton itself. Fashion is a wingless aspiration after elegance ; 
a brazen usurpation ; a baseless pretension kept alive by quick 
changes of aspect ; an impertinent substitution of personality for 
principle ; an imposition of effi'ontery upon weakness ; a carica- 
ture of beauty ; a I'estless prosaic straining for an ideal ; a mock 
flower, bloomless, odorless and seedless. 

Although, in the large cities, the mimicry of European ways 
evolves out of our prosaic citizens an unavoidable portion of vul- 
garity, the corrective of republican self-respect is ever active ; 
and amidst much false aim and shallow endeavor, there is percep- 
tible a growing appreciation of the genuine and true. Already 
the aspiring nouveau riche feels that culture and taste are the 

3* 



34 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

essence of social excellence, and hastens to give his children the 
advantages himself has missed. Where there is natural suscep- 
tibility of polish, education and republican self-reliance tell at 
once upon the second generation, and at times, — such is the rich- 
ness of nature, — a man springs, up from the workshop, and while 
by talent he attains to affluence, attains to grace and courteous 
propriety by native refinement and generosity ; and totally devoid 
of the grimaces, the sleek well-tailored outside, the money-jingling 
vulgarity oi" the parvenu, he takes his place as a gentleman with- 
out the English ordeal of three generations. We apply a practi- 
cal test to know what is good blood, and soon recognize him for 
what he is. Evidence is constantly thrown out of a tendency to- 
wards higher things. The intellectual lift up the tastes, and the 
spiritual the desires, for other wants than for furniture and equipages. 
As inequality in mental faculties among men is a law of nature, 
the idea of a " best society " is real, and will go on manifesting 
itself more and more distinctly, working constantly upward through 
impure materials. The mind will by degrees straighten itself 
into better proportions. Factitious and grossly-bottomed distinc- 
tions will be effaced. In our country we have compassed a vantage- 
ground of liberty, whence to ascend to higher platforms of social 
condition. Grossly do they underrate the worth of liberty, who 
regard security of person and property, equality before the law, 
freedom of speech and of printing, as its ripe fruit. These are 
but the foundation for a broader and more beautiful structure. 
Through them the mind will brace its wings and sharpen its vision 
for wider sweeps into the domain of the possible ; and expanding 
with unrestricted inter-communion, grow in brightness and benefi- 
cence. Proofs of this progress are discernible in the easier eman- 
cipation from soul-smothering customs, and in the longings and 
hopes of the freest minds. In this higher organization the gentle- 
man will of course not be wanting ; for no well-developed society 
could be without nim, in whom, as Spenser sings, 



I 



BRUSSELS. 35 



" The gentle mind by gentle deed is known." 

Let tliose who regret the decay of the old-fashioned gentleman, 
because the new-fashioned one, being a coarse imitation of hirn, 
is, like all imitations, a failure, take hope, that there is one of a 
higher fashion possible and already forming, in whom polite- 
ness, being the otl'spring of love and beauty, shall cease borrow- 
ing of falsehood ; in whom refinement shall not be the superficial 
show of conventional discipline, but a spontaneous emanation 
from the purified mind ; courtesy be free from pride, and elevation 
be enjoyed by right neither of pedigree nor Plutus, but solely by 
natural endowment, be acknowledged as ungrudgingly as differ- 
ence of stature, and sit on the possessor as unconsciously as flow- 
ers on stalks, and like them dispense beauty all around. 

BopPART, on the Rhine, July, 1841. 

After spending six weeks most pleasantly at Antwerp, we 
turned our steps towards the Rhine, stopping but a day in Brus- 
sels, to get a glimpse of the pictures in the Museum, a look at 
the painted windows of the Church of St. Gudule, and some 
insight into the manufacture of Brussels lace. We didn't care 
to see Palaces, We had been paced through those of Paris and 
its neighborhood, and Palaces are all alike ; on the outside, huge, 
overgrown, depopulated-looking edifices, and in the inside, suite 
upon suite of lofty rooms and halls, where upholstery, with its 
glittering gildings and silks, keeps repeating its short circle of 
adornment. Brussels is a cheerful, sunny city, but it is always 
associated in my mind with its little ambition of being a little 
Paris, and with its sub-population of questionable and vulgar 
English, that taint its atmosphere. I was told at Antwerp of an 
Englishman and his family, who came there to live, although a 
dull town compared with Brussels, because, as he said, he h;id a 
good name at home, and he wouldn't have it blasted by a resi 
dence at Brussels. 



36 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

From Brussels steam carried us in a few houro thro igh il-f 
fat, well-tilled land to Liege, the Sheffield of Belgium. The 
railroad not being finished beyond Liege, we there took post-liorsef. 
The country all about Liege lifts itself briskly up into hills, an(< 
the road thence to Aix-la-Chapelle offers lively landscapes tv 
the traveller's eye. Befoi'e reaching Aix we passed the Prussia/ 
frontier. After fifteen years I found myself again in Germany , 
the strong, rich tones of the language came back familiarly t«' 
my ears. They came laden with memories of kindness, and 
enjoyments, and profit. My re-entrance into Germany was one 
of the happiest hours of the journey ; nor was it marred by vexa- 
tions at the Prussian custom-house, through which we were 
allowed to pass after a nominal search. It is one of the import- 
ant events in a traveller's career, the crossing of a boundary. 
Another variety of the species man, with new fixtures and envi- 
ronments. Another people, another language, another look to 
the land and everything on it. Other sights and other sounds to 
the freshly busied senses ; and to the interior mind, — alive in 
each region with its peculiar heroes and benefactors, — other 
inmates. History unrolls another leaf of her illuminated testa- 
ment, and we tell over again another treasure she has bequeathed 
us. 

In Aix-la-Chapelle, the birth and burial place of Charlemagne, 
famous since the Romans for its sulphur baths, we spent but a 
night, and continued our way to strike the Rhine at Cologne. 
Thence to Gottingen was, by the nearest route through West- 
phalia, hardly more than a two days' journey. It would have 
been but a melancholy pleasure to re-visit the noble old Univer- 
sity, now made ignoble by the base-mindedness of her rulers. 
What a fall, with her seven hundred students, from her palmy 
state in 1824-25, when she counted over fifteen hundred; 
and when, drawn from all quarters of the globe by her high 
renown, we sometimes assembled together under the Cathedra of 



GOTTINGEN AND WEIMAR. 37 



a single Professor, listeners from North America and from South 
America, from England and from Italy, from France and from 
Sweden, from Russia and from Switzerland, from Poland and 
from every State in Germany. The galaxy of teachers she then 
had, the successors of others as eminent, the cowardly policy 
since pursued towards her, has prevented from being renewed. 
Gottingen has ceased to be what Napoleon called her, " I'Univer- 
site de I'Europe." She has dwindled into provincialism. — And 
beyond was Weimar, enwreathed to all cultivated imaginations 
with a unique glory. In his youth, the Grand Duke Charles 
Augustus, — a natural leader among men, for fifty years the com- 
panion of Goethe, — belted his little Capital round with the bright- 
est stars of German genius. During his long life they illuminated 
and refined his court, and were a blessing to his people ; and 
since his death, their sparkling names form a diadem round his, 
that outshines the crowns of haughty Kings. At the time of my 
visit in 1825, the Grand Duke and his congenial Duchess, and 
the greatest of his poetic band, Goethe, were still alive ; and over 
the hospitalities of the Palace, the remarkable beauty of the ladies 
of his court threw a fascination that made it like a fairy castle. — 
Still further was Dresden, with its natural charms and its treasures 
of Art. But I was not now to behold those well remembered spots. 
Our destiny rules us most despotically when our will seems freest. 
We arrived at Cologne early enough in the afternoon to go out 
and look at the Cathedral, which, finished, would have been, as 
well from its size as its beauty, the foremost among Gothic 
Churches. Most of the Gothic Cathedrals ai'e, like this, unfin- 
ished. The conceptions of their artists were loftier than the 
power cr will of those who supplied the means for their execution. 
Their incompleteness is symbolical of the short-comings of the 
noblest minds in their aspirations. Our road now lay up the 
Rhine, but the river only enjoys the embrace of its hills, and the 
animating company of the old castles that crown them, between 



38 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Bonn and Mayence. Bonn is twelve miles above Cologne. Here, 
on my way from Gottingen fifteen years before, coming down the 
R-hine, partly on foot, before the day of steamboats in Germany, 
I had stopped, with an English fellow-traveller and student, to see 
Niebuhr and A. W. Schlcgel, who were Professors in the Uni- 
versity of Bonn. Schlegel kept us waiting -some time in a neat 
drawing-room, where hung a portrait of Madame de Stael. He 
then came in hurriedly, adjusting the tie of his cravat. He was 
affable and lively, and in his dress, bearing and conversation, 
seemed anxious to sink the Professor and appear the man of 
the world. Niebuhr was out, but came in an hour to the 
Hotel to see us. He was a tall, striking, man and spoke English 
perfectly. The sight of an American seemed to excite his mind. 
He plied me with questions about our institutions and customs. 
Doubtless his thoughts were often busied and puzzled with the 
new historical phenomenon of the great Republic, whose huge 
bulk was heaving itself up portentously in the far west. But 
Niebuhr was not the man to seize its significance or embrace its 
grandeur. His mind was exegetical and critical, rather than 
constructive and prophetic. 

We are now in the heart of Rhenish Prussia. The civil 
government of Prussia is after the military model. The king is 
the commander-in-chief of the nation, and the schoolmaster is his 
drill-sergeant. The boys are taught in such a way that the men 
shall fall readily into the ranks of obedience. A uniform is put 
upon their minds, and, as with the rank and file of a regiment, 
the uniformity is more looked to than the fitness. The govern- 
ment does all it can to save men the pain of thought and choice, 
and if it could would do everything. The officers of administra- 
tion having the intelligence and industry of the cultivated German 
mind, and these being everywhere the German solidity and hon- 
esty, the system bears some good fruit, such virtue is there in 
order and method, though only of the mechanical sort. Prussia 



THE GERMANS. 39 



is a well-managed estate, not a well-governed country ; for good 
government implies a recognition of the high nature of humanity, 
the first want of which is freedom. The only basis whereon the 
moral being of man can be built up is individual independence. 
To reach that higher condition of freedom, where he shall be 
emancipated from the tyranny of self, of his own passions, he 
needs first of all to be free from that of his fellows. The one 
freedom is only possible through the other. 

That the Germans are a breed that can keep pace with the 
best in the development of civilisation, they have given manifold 
proof in achievements by word and deed. They are a strong, 
brained, deep-hearted race. What creative power have they not 
exhibited in letters, in science, in Art ! With what soul and 
steadfastness they backed their mighty Luther, in his great strife 
for mental independence ! How they rose, like a giant from his 
sleep, against French usurpation, and with Leipzic paid Napoleon 
for Jena ! The conditions were reversed. At Jena, Napoleon, 
though with dementing egotism he had set a crown upon his head, 
was still the leader of a freshly emancipated people warrinor 
against old tyrannies : at Leipzic he was the hardened despot, 
with no instruments but his legions, and no props to his vulgar 
throne but force and fear ; while the monarchs of Germany and 
Russia were upborne on the hearts of the liberty-seeking people. 
The sceptred weaklings, whose capitals had been a prey to the 
conqueror, became suddenly strong with the strength of wrath- 
swollen multitudes. This wrath is ever ready to be rekindled. 
Its next outburst will not be against foreign oppressors. 

At Bonn we stopped but to change horses. Now it is that the 
Rhine discloses its treasures. Two or three miles above Bonn, 
we passed under the ancient Castle of Godesberg ; a little further 
that of Rolandse'ck ; opposite, on the other side of the water, the 
Drachcnfels gives life to the "Seven Mountains;" and midway 
between them, lying softly in the low river, is the Island with the 



40 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPP:. 

old Convent of Nounenwerth. Around are green valleys, and 
plentiful fields, and grape-mantled steeps, and frequent villages 
and compact towns. And thus, the whole way from Bonn to 
Mayence, you drive through a double population. Above, the 
sides of the castle-crowned hills are alive with mailed cavalcades, 
bugles are winding from the turrets, fair ladies are leaning over 
parapets waving their ^veet welcomes and farewells ; while be- 
low, through the tranquil movements of a secure industry, the 
noiseless labors of tillage, the hum of busy towns, you roll smoothly 
forward on a macadamized road, and try to stir up your phleg- 
matic postillion to a race with a steamboat abreast of you on the 
river. To eyes at all open to natural beauty, this region, un- 
peopled, rude and naked, were a feast ; but twice-touched as it 
is by the productive hand of man, the broken shadows of ancient 
strongholds checkering the turfed flanks of the cannon-guarded 
fortress ; the images of spires, of cottages, of wooded heights, of 
ruins, of rocky precipices, of palaces, all playing together in the 
ripple of the sinuous stream ; the old river, fresh and lively as in 
the days of Arminius, with its legends, its history, and its warm 
present life ; senses, thought, imagination, all addressed at once 
amid scenes steeped in beauty ; — 'tis a region unmatched, and 
worth a long journey to behold. 

As we approached Coblentz, Ehrenbreitstein, the Gibraltar of 
Germany, lifted high its armed head, frowning towards France. 
The next morning we were again on the enchanted road, and in 
two hours reached Boppart. Turning up hill to the right, just on 
entering the town, we ascended to a large substantial old pile 
directly behind and above it. This was formerly the convent of 
Marienberg, for noble ladies, most solidly and commodiously 
built for a household of two hundred ; seated in a valley betweenl 
hills, with shady walks, and springs, and fountains, and broadf 
terraces, whence you look over the old town, founded by Drusus, 
into the river, now enlivened almost hourly with sociable steam«l 



THE WATER-CURE 4t 



boats. The convent has been converted into a water-cure esta« 
blishment. While at Antwerp several small works on the water, 
cure had fallen into my hands, and impressed my mind at once 
almost to conviction with the truth of its principles. I will en- 
dcavor to give you a sketch of what it is and what it does. I 
cannot better begin than with an account of my own daily pro- 
ceeding. 

At five in the morning I am waked up by a bath-attendant. 
Having stripped the narrow bed, he lays on the bare mattress 
a thick blanket, wherein he wraps me closely from neck to heels; 
then another blanket doubled is laid on and tightly tucked in, and 
then another, and then a light feather bed. This is fitly called 
being packed up. In about an hour I begin to perspire ; where- 
upon the window is opened to let in fresh air, and half a tumbler 
of cold water is administered, which draught, repeated every 
quarter of an hour, promotes perspiration. After perspiring for 
forty or fifty minutes, I am unpacked, get streaming out of the 
blankets into an empty bath-tub at the bed-side, when instantly a 
couple of large buckets of cold water are poured over my head 
and shoulders. For a minute or two my hands and the attend- 
ant's are swiftly plied all over the surface, as if to rub in the 
water. Then comes a thorough dry rubbing with a coarse linen 
sheet, and after dressing quickly, a walk abroad for half an hour 
or more to support and hasten re-action, drinking the while from 
the fountain tvvo or three glasses of water. On the breakfast- 
table are whea1,.and rye bread, butter, milk, and water, and fruit 
for those who choose it ; no tea, nor coffee, nor anything warm. 
Between eleven and twelve I take a sitting-bath of from fifteen to 
twenty minutes' duration, on coming out of which I go up to the 
top of the hills as if the muscles that had been immersed were 
turned into wings. Two or three more tumblers of water are 
drunk during the exercise. Dinner, at one, is never smoking 
hot, and consists for the most part of beef, mutton, and fowls 



42 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE 

roasted or boiled, with vegetables, followed by a simple dessert. 
No spices are used in cooking, and water is the only beverage. 
Bathing re-commences about four, a long interval being prescribed 
after each meal. My afternoon bath is generally what is called 
a staub-bad, literally, a dust-bath, which is in fact a shower-bath, 
except that the shower, instead of falling from above, comes late- 
rally from circular tubes in the midst of which you stand, and 
which, the moment the water is let on, pour upon you a thousand 
fine streams. Resolution must be well seconded by quick 
friction with the hands, to keep you within this refrigerating circle 
two or three minutes. After this is the best time for a long stroll 
over the hills or along the shores of the Rhine. Supper, between 
six and seven, is much the same as breakfast ; nothing hot, nothing 
stimulating. All meals are alike in the voracity of appetite with 
which they are eaten. I wear all day over the stomach a water- 
band or compress, — a double fold of coarse linen, six or seven 
inches wide and about twenty long, half wrung out in cold water, 
over which is tied a ary one of the same material and thickness, 
a little broader and meeting round the body. This, excluding the 
air, prevents evaporation from the wet bandage, and keeps it 
always warm. The compress is re-wet every two or three hours. 
Its effect is, to draw more life into the weakened stomach. 

A similar course is daily followed by the rest of the inmates. 
Instead of the affusion from buckets, most plunge directly into the 
full-bath after the sweating in the morning. Some are wrapt in 
a wet sheet, within the blankets, in which they lie about an hour. 
Then there is the potent douche, a stream of two to four inches 
diameter, falling from ten to twenty feet perpendicularly, which is 
taken when the body has become invigorated and the skin open- 
ened by the other applications. There are, moreover, local baths ; 
foot-baths, head-baths, eye-baths. . 

The number of patients in this establishment at present is about 
eighty, with all kinds of chronic maladies, — gout, rheumatism, 



THE WATER-CURE. 43 



neuralgia, dyspepsia, deafness, lameness, paralysis, &c. Fill up 
the &c. with every name that has been coined to express the 
bodily afflictions of man, and not one that is curable, but can be 
cured by means of water. By means of water, note that ; for 
water can cure no disease ; it can but help or force the body itself 
to cure it. What more does medical Art profess to do ? No 
intelligent physician aims at aught but so to rouse or direct the 
vis medicatrix naturce, the curative force of nature, that it may 
throw off disease. To his lancet, his purgatives, his emetics, his 
narcotics, his stimulants, he ascribes a purely secondary agency, 
that of touching the spring of life in a way that it shall rebound 
against the evil that presses it. All his appliances and efforts and 
doses have but one single aim, namely, to act on the vital force. 
In awakening, seconding, guiding this, consists his whole skill. 
Herein, then, the water and drug systems are alike. Most unlike 
are they in the innocence and efficacy of their means, and in the 
success of their endeavors. 

Patients are here, as at mineral watering places, on account 
of chronic diseases, that is, diseases that have taken up their abode 
in the body, because the body has not vigor left to eject them. 
1 hese complaints the Faculty hardly ever profess to eradicate. In 
most patients so afflicted, disease and the Doctor have a joint life- 
estate. Change of air, temperance, quiet, diet, are the alleviating 
prescriptions to some. Permanent restoration is seldom promised 
by the upright physician. Priesnitz and his disciples undertake 
to cure, and do cure, many such ; and by means of water nearly 
all are curable, where there is constitutional vitality enough for 
re-action, and no organic lesion. The process is as simple as 
nature's laws. The world will soon wonder, as it has done at 
other revelations of genius, why it was so long undiscovered. 
Priesnitz has revealed the power there is in water. With this 
one agent he can co-work with all the processes and movements 
of nature in the human organism. He can draw the vital stream 



44 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

from one part to another ; he can unload the congested blood- 
vessels ; he can quicken or slacken the action of the heart ; he 
can elevate pr depress the nervous energy. And his agent, in this 
at once subtle and powerful co-operation, is not a poison, as is 
almost every drug, never weakens, as does every bleeding, but is 
a pure nourishing element, as precious to the body as the vital air 
itself, and having with its every texture such sympathy, that four 
parts out of five of the constituents of the blood are water. In 
this consists much of its virtue as a curative means. It is not 
enough that it be cold : Priesnitz rejects all mineral waters, and 
even salt sea-water. 

The first step towards a restoration of health is a re-subjection 
of ihe body to natural laws, as regards food, drink, air, and exer- 
cise. Further ; as the vital energy is the final source of restora- 
tion, it is necessary, when disease has become fixed in the body, 
that this energy be directed against it with undivided aim. Hence, 
there must be withdrawal from business and care and serious 
mental occupation ; and therefore it is, that the cure of chronic 
complaints can, in most cases, only be undertaken with hope of 
success at a water-cure establishment. These first conditions 
being satisfied, under which the body begins at once to feel fresh 
vigor, the next step is, to accelerate this invigo ration. The forti- 
fying effects of cold bathing are universally known. Without 
considering now the various forms of its application, devised by 
the sagacity of Priesnitz, the mere loss of caloric in a cold bath 
necessarily stimulates the' appetite. More food is called for to 
supply the lost heat. The quickened respiration in the bath and 
during the rapid exercise it provokes, supply a correspondent in- 
crease of oxygen. As Liebig simply and beautifully explains, 
animal heat is the result of the combination within the body be- 
tween the oxygen brought in through the lungs, and the carbon 
and hydrogen in the food. The oxygen consumes, literally burns 
up, the waste of the body, the dead particles that have served their 



THE WATER-CURE. 45 

purpose of nourishing the vital activity. The fire burns more 
briskly. By the increase of food, fresh material is furnished more 
rapidly ; the burning of the old keeps pace through the increased 
influx of oxygen ; and thus the transformations in the body, the 
sov.rce and index of health, go on with increased quickness, and 
the strength grows in proportion. A man with a good fund of 
vitality left, who takes three or four cold baths and drinks a dozen 
glasses of cold water daily, will eat just double his usual quantity, 
and that of the plainest fere, and with a relish that he never felt 
at the costliest banquet, and a sweetness and fulness of flavor, that 
recall the time of his fast-growing boyhood. 

'Tis a familiar fact, that if a fragment of bone, for instance, in 
case of fracture, be left loose and unknit up when the fracture 
heals, it will be thrown out to the surface by the vital force. 
Where there is life enough, the same self-purifying, self-protect- 
ing effort will be made against whatever arrests or disturbs the 
vital process, against every form of disease therefore. The third 
step in the proceeding of Priesnitz is, to encourage and assist this 
tendency by more specific means than the mere addition of strength 
by cold bathing. 

How is the determination from the centre to the surface to be 
promoted ? 

By action on the skin through the sweating in blankets, and the 
coaking in the wet sheet inclosed by blankets. The power ot 
these applications cannot be conceived but by one who has seen 
ihem, I may add, felt them. An activity is awakened in the skin 
unknown to it before, and this without any foreign or hostile appli- 
ances. Under the air-tight blankets softly oozes out the perspira- 
tion ; the wet sheet sucks atthe whole surface, like a gentle all- 
embracing poultice. The skin is in a glow — a glow which it 
owes to no heat but that beneath it. The life of the whole body 
is drawn to and towards it. In this state of heightened animation 
it re-acts against the cold bath with alacrity. One or other of 



46 SCENES AND THOUGHTS L\ EUROPE. 



these processes — according to the disease, condition or tempera- 
ment of the patient — repeated daily, keeps the currents, so to 
speak, always setting outwardly. The skin, that great auxiliary 
of the lungs, grows elastic, regains its functions, that had become 
lamed by the destructive practice of swathing in flannel, and the 
neglect of cold ablutions, needed daily for the whole surface as 
much as for the face. Chronic congestions and inflammations are 
thus gradually relieved ; the system feels lightened. Morbulc 
matter is expelled. That it is morbific, is often known by its 
odor and color. Frequently, too, what medicines have been taken, 
sometimes years before, is discovered by the odor of the perspira- 
tion ; as valerian, iodine, assafsetida, sulphur, mercury. 

The sitting bath performs the important part of drawing the 
blood from the brain, and of invigorating the great nerves of the 
stomach and bowels, which in nearly all chronic complaints have 
become weakened by drugs, heating food and drinks, and seden- 
tary habits. When, by the sweating or the wet sheet, the sitting 
bath, and copious daily draughts of cold water, the skin has been 
opened and animated, the internal skin — the lining membrane of 
the lungs and digestive organs — stimulated, and all the functions 
invigorated, so that the system is restored in a degree to its pris- 
tine power of resistance, then is applied the most vigorous of all 
the water agents, the douche, which rouses to the utmost the ner- 
vous energy, and thus contributes much towards putting the body 
in a state to cope with its foe. 

Now the aim of all these purifying energizing processes is, to 
bring on a crisis, that is, an effort of the system to rid itself of the 
disease which obstructs and oppresses it. The crisis is, in fact, 
in strong cases, an acute attack, taking the form of diarrhoea, more 
or less active or prolonged, or of vomiting, or cutaneous eruption, 
or fever. Sometimes these symptoms come one after the other, 
or even several at once. With knowledge and judgment, the 
crisis is guided surely to a cure. When the disease is not of long- 



THE WATER-CURE. 47 



stemding, the functional derangement not being firmly established, 
the cure is effected of course much more quickly and often with- 
out apparent crisis. On the other hand, in aggravated cases, 
when the body, in tlie phrase of Priesnitz, is very full of bad .^tuff, 
the patient may have to go through two or three crises, before his 
system is perfectly purged of disease. Once through the crisis, 
the patient is cured, cured effectually, radically, not apparently 
and temporarily, but permanently and absolutely. The nervous 
energy is renovated, the skin is restored to the full performance 
of its important functions, the digestive apparatus works perfectly, 
the blood flows actively and impartially, no morbid condition lurks 
in any of the tissues, the transformations go on briskly and smooth- 
ly, life plays lightly and evenly through the whole organism ; the 
man is well. With healthy habits he can keep so all his days, 
and end them with an easy natural death, not the hard unnatural 
one that most are doomed to, dying of disease and the Doctor. 

Visitors are astonished at the cheerfulness of the inmates. A 
merrier company is not to be found on the joyous Rhine. Such 
a happy Hospital is a phenomenon. No brilliant balls, nor luxu- 
rious lounges, nor dainty viands, nor fragrant wines, nor gambling 
saloons, are needed here as at the neighboring Ems and Wiesba- 
den, to charm away ennui and make the day endurable. Noon 
drives away morning, and evening noon, ere we have done with 
them ; and when we lay our heads down at night, so quick and 
dream-tight is sleep, that morning is upon us again as if he had 
but waited for the closing of our lids, and nature had compressed 
hours into moments that they might lie weightless on our brains. 
Such is the virtue of water, which at once soothes and exhilarates. 
Il must be remembered, too, that the invalids here are all outcasts, 
unfortunates sentenced by Doctors' edicts to perpetual banishment 
from the realm of health. Hence the slov/ness of the cure, which 
feV who have the time have the perseverance to complete. Most 
of ua are impatient if complaints of years' standing are not washed 



48 SCENKS AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

out in a few weeks. Thus, but a small number earn the lull 
oenefit of a radical cure ; more are partially relieved of their 
pains; the rest, and largest proportion, only get strength and 
habits wherewith the better to bear them. 

But it is in acute diseases, that the triumphs of the water-cure 
are most signal and astounding. Here its results look like mira 
cles, so rapid are they, so regenerative, so complete. 

I have said, that the crisis is an acute attack. On the other 
hand, an acute disease is but a crisis brought about by the vital 
force of nature, unexalted by the water-processes. Priesnitz 
cures all such, rapidly, with ease, with certainty. What he is 
always striving to produce, is here brought to his hand. An acute 
disease being a strenuous effort that the organism makes to throw 
out the enemy, Priesnitz comes in helpfully, by cooling the skin 
and opening its pores. This sounds very simple and easy. Is 
there in Christendom a physician who can cool the skin and open 
the pores at will in a burning fever ? Not all the schools and 
systems of all countries through long ages of experiment and woe, 
have discovered the nature of fevers and the art of treating them. 
In spite of his tonics, his diaphoretics, his antiphlogistics, his 
lancet, Death strides past the Doctor, and seizes upon the young 
and the robust, as boldly and surely now as a thousand years 
ago. Let the world, then, rejoice. Glad tidings have come from 
Graeffenberg. Someof the scourges of mankind are stayed. The 
cholera, the scarlet-fever, the small-pox, are shorn of their terrors. 
At this proclamation some will smile, some will chide, the most 
will ejaculate incredulous. Facts upon facts are there, and thou- 
sands have witnessed them and spread afar the news of the bless- 
ing', and those who have looked at them studiously, know why 
they are and that they must be. Inflammations and fevers are 
perfectly manageable by Priesnitz and his pupils. What is the 
glory of Harvey and Jenner to that of the German peasajit ? * 

From the times of Hippocrates and Galen, down to those of 



THE WATER-CURE. 49 



Carrie and Hoffman, many are the Doctors, as set forth in the 
books brouglit out by Priesnitz's doings, who have cured diseases 
with water. But the shrewdest of them had only glimpses of its 
p'ower. Nature, as is her way, has constantly thrown out hints 
to them, and temptations with facts ; but not in one of them be- 
fore Priesnitz did the facts inbreed thoughts, that, wrought upon 
by the awakened spirit of research, led it on to the detection of 
the laws, whereby this one element becomes a curative means of 
an efficacy beyond the liveliest hopes of medical enthusiasts. 
Still, " the Faculty " say, forsooth, there is nothing new in 
Priesnitz's pietended discoveries. Is there nothing new in put- 
ting a patient daily for months through four or five cold baths, 
one or two of them while his skin is dripping with perspiration 
produced by his own warmth, and thereby curing him radically 
of the gout ? Is it not new to thrust a man delirious into a cold 
shallow bath, and there keep him for nine hours with constant 
friction on his legs and pouring of cold water on his head, and 
thus to restore him in twenty-four hours ? Who ever before put 
a child with a brain fever through forty wet sheets in as many 
successive half hours, and by so doing completely subdued in 
three days a disease, whose cure would have been doubtful with 
drugs, in three weeks. This magical wet-sheet itself, what a 
discovery ! Is it not a stupendous novelty to regard fevers as, in 
all cases, but the manifestation of the struggle going on within 
between the vital principle and a disease which threatens it ? 
And is it not a new feeling, in the summoned healer, to approach 
the fever-heated patient with clearest confidence, looking on the 
fever as a sign of vital activity, which with 9. single agent he can 
uphold and helpfully direct to a rapid and safe issue ? instead of 
going to work against the vital principle with his drugs, — which 
draw it off from its struggle with the disease to fight themselves, — 
and with his life-tapping lancet, inwardly trembling, — if he be 
clear-headed and conscientious, — for the slow result, doubting of 

4 



50 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

his whole procedure, coming back daily for weeks with the tre- 
pidation of one who is tussling in the dark with Death for a human 
being, and often overwhelmed at the sudden victory of his foe, 
by the conviction, that himself has opened to him the path. I 
refer now to the best of the medical guild, the few men of thought, 
feeling, and integrity. Such will feel, how sadly true is the self- 
reproach of Faust, who, on being hailed with honor and thanks 
by the peasants for having, a young assistant to his medical 
father, saved so many of them from the plague, exclaims that 
their praise sounds like scorn, and relates to his companion the 
blind, desperate nature of their treatment, concluding as 

follows : — 

'' And thus with most infernal pills, 

Among these valleys and these hills, 

Far worse than did the Pest we blazed. 
Thousands did I the poison give ; 
They withered off, and I must live 

To hear th' audacious murderers praised.* 

The common crowd of legalized botchers walk through their 
daily mischievous routine, partly in ignorant thoughtlessness, 
partly in insensibility. 

" The whole baseless calamitous system of drug-poisoning," 
says a German expounder of Priesnitz's practice, " which has 
already snatched away many millions, had its origin in the mis- 
conception of primary or acute diseases. Because people did not 
perceive that these abnorrrral feverish conditions are only efforts 
at healing which the organism makes, they mistook these fever- 
symptoms for the disease itself, and finding that they could be ' 

* So haben wir mit hollischen Latwergen 
In diesen Thalern, diesen Bergen, 
Weit schlimmer als die Pest getobt. 
Ich habe selbst den Gift an tausende gegeben; 
Sie vvelkten hin, ich muss erieben, 
Dass man die frechen Morder lobt. 



THE WATER-CURE. 5I 



uUaycd by blood-letting and drugging, they prized this fatal dis- 
covery. Then sprang up from this poisonous seeding a whole 
host of terrible deadly maladies. But because the afflictions did 
not show themselves immediately, within a few weeks after the 
medicinal suppression of the acute disease, no one had a thought 
that the drugs and bleeding were the cause of them." The same 
author thus writes of inflammation in case of wounds ! — " In order 
to heal a wound, the organism must form on the part where the 
wound is, new flesh, new vessels for the new capillaries, &c. To 
be able to form this flesh, it is necessary that the material for it, — 
the forming sap, which is the blood, — be led to the part in abnor- 
mal quantity. Thus, too, plants heal an injury by sending to the 
injured spot sap in unusual abundance. Through this abnormal 
blood-life, increased warmth is produced in the part to be healed, 
which warmth, however, only then gets to real inflammation when 
the instinct of the wounded person for cold water inwardly and 
outwardly is not satisfied. Allopathy, in its stolidity, looks upon 
this streaming of the blood to the wounded part, and the exalta- 
tion of life therein to the point of heat, as disease, as something 
which must be removed, and lets blood. Hereupon, notwithstand- 
ing, the organism continues to send blood to the injured part, 
where it is needed, and the Doctor continues to let blood, some- 
times until the extremities become bloodless and cold, and the 
patient often dies of weakness, — as is also the case with internal, 
so called, inflammations." 

These views of fever and inflammation have been deduced 
from the facts observed and brought to light by Priesnitz. If any 
like them were ever before entertained, it was but in a partial, 
feeble way. They have never formed part of the medical creed ; 
they have not been made the foundation of a school. As great as 
between the momentary illumination of lightning and the light of 
the day-long sun, is the difference between having a thought pass 
through the mind, and having it planted there till it grow to a 



52 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

fruitful conviction. Hereby is tlie Healing Art become, for the 
first time, what all Art ought to be, the handmaid of Nature, and 
thus, at last, what it never before was, a genuine healing art, and 
a blessing to humanity. 

This broad, absolute condemnation of the drug and lancet prac- 
tice, is at any rate not new. Hear some of the most famous 
physicians speak of their Art. 

Van lielmont says : — " A murder-loving devil has taken pos- 
session of the medical chairs ; for none but a devil could recom- 
mend to physicians blood-letting as a necessary means." 

Boerhave : — " Wiien one compares the good performed on the 
earth by half a dozen true sons of jEsculapius since the rise of 
the Art, with the evil done among men by the countless number 
of Doctors of this trade, one will doubtless think, that it were 
much better if there never had been a physician in the world." 

Reil : — " It is perfectly clear that we do not know the nature 
of fever, and that the treatment thereof is nothing more than 
naked empiricism. — The variety of opinions is a proof that the 
nature of the subject is not yet clear ; for when the truth is once 
found, certainty takes the place of hypothesis in every sound 
mind." 

Rush : — " We have not only multiplied diseases, but have 
made them more fatal." 

Majendie : — " In the actual condition of medical science, the 
physician mostly plays but the part of simple spectator of the sad 
episodes which his profession furnishes him." 

Billing : — " I visited the diflferent schools, and the students of 
each hinted, if they did not assert, that the other sects killed their 
patients." 

Water too can kill, or it could not cure. Yet may it fearlessly 
be affirmed, that where one will be hurt or killed by the water- 
treatment, one hundred will be by drugs. Relatively, the water. 
cure is without danger ; nay, it is so absolutely. Knowledge ia 



THE WATER-CURE. 53 



n-T'ded to do anything, even to grow cabbages. An idiot may 
break his neck falling down steps safely used by thousands daily. 
Put conceive knowledge with poisons for its instrument, and the 
same knowledge with one pure agent, and able with that one to 
bring out any and all the effects aimed at by the lancet and whole 
pharmacopoeia. In the skilfuUest hands, arsenic, prussic acid, 
copperas, oil of vitriol, mercury, iodine, strychnine, all medical 
poisons in constant use, suddenly cause death at times, to the con- 
founding of the practitioner. Their remote effects in shortening 
and embittering life, are incalculable, unimaginable. In short, 
the water-cure, at once simple and philosophical, is dangerous only 
where there is clumsiness, rashness, or stupidity : drugs, virulent 
and treacherous, are full of immediate danger in the most pru- 
dent and sagacious hands, and are besides charged with evils dis- 
tant and insidious. 

By means of water, then, whose energizing and healing power 
has been to the full revealed by Priesnitz, chronic diseases, till 
now deemed hopeless, are eradicable, and acute ones cease to be 
alarming. By the thorough cure of acute attacks, chronic com- 
plaints, — mostly the consequence of suppressed or half-cured acute 
ones, — will be much fewer. Through the same influence, acute 
will become less frequent. Were this discovery to cause no othef 
change of habits, the substitution of cold for warm baths and the 
general practice of cold bathing, will alone produce such bodily 
fortification as to ward off an immense amount of disease. But 
tlie change cannot stop there. Wedded as men are to routine, 
hugging custom as if liXe itself were intertwined with its plaits, 
still they do by degrees let in the light of new truths. When one 
of her great laws is discovered, Nature smiles joyfully and benig- 
nantly, as a mother on the unfolding of her infant's mind, and in 
man's heart is reflected the smile, the harbinger of new blessings. 
Tliis discovery is already hailed by tens of thousands as pregnant 
with immeasurable good. It is so simple, so intelligible, so ac 



54 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

cessible, that it must spread its blessings in spite of prejudice, 
interest, and ignorance. 

Health is nearly banished from Christendom. Even among 
those who lead an outdoor life of healthful labor, there is the de- 
bilitating counteraction of stimulants, in drink, in food, in tobacco. 
The wealthier classes are more the victims of drugs, the poor of 
alcohol. These two curses, poisoning the sources of life, have 
diminished the stature and strength of the race, far more even than 
vice and poverty, of which too alcohol is a prolific parent. That 
there is this diminution is proved, among other evidence, by the 
falling off in the standard of stature for soldiers in the principal 
countries of Europe, in England, in France, in Germany. 
Through these poisons, the natural instincts of appetite have been 
depraved. There is a general vitiation of the palate through the 
perverted nerves, brought about by the universal use of all kinds 
of foreign stimulants, medicinal, spirituous, and spicy. Water is 
deemed good to mix with spirits and wine, and milk with tea and 
coffee. Pure, they are insipid, and so deep has reached the cor- 
ruption, that it is quite a common belief, that water is unwhole- 
some ! There is a general craving for stimulants. They are 
esteemed temperate who use them only at meals ! Their hurtful 
effects upon the health, temper, strength and morals, cannot be 
estimated. Against all this. Nature protests by the sighs of 
weakness, the groans of disease, the pangs of conscience, and the 
agonies of premature death. Priesnitz would seem to be commis- 
sioned to re-utter the commands of Nature, to rouse mankind to 
a sense of its growing physical degenera(?y, and to open the path 
towards health, refreshed life and enjoyment. Priesnitz has de- 
monstrated, that for the preservation of health and restoration from 
disease there is an efficacy, a virtue in Water, hitherto undreamt 
of; that all kinds of stimulants, under all circumstances whether 
in disease or in health, are always falsehoods, disguised like worse 
moral lies under cajoling flatteries ; and this he enforces witli the 



FRANKFORT. 55 



eloquence of cheerfullest, sweetest sensations, renovating, I miu-ht 
almost say, re-creating, the nervous system, and thus putting 
literally new life into the body. 

I" 

Geneva, September, 1841. 

The last of July, after a six weeks' experiment of the water- 
cure, we left Boppart. These few weeks have made, I may say, 
an epoch in my life. It is not the bodily strength I gained, — and 
the time was much too short for a full restoration to health, — but 
the gain of new truths and convictions, which give me in a de. 
gree command over my bodily condition ; the gain of insight and 
knowledge, whereby 1 can ward off attacks against which I, like 
others, before felt myself powerless. I have learnt to know the 
effects of stimulants, and am emancipated from their tyranny. 
As on the morning of our departure from Marienberg, we drove 
along the beautiful shores of the Rhine, I felt, that new and bene- 
ficent laws had been divulged to me, and that I was closer under 
the protection of Nature. 

At Bingen, af*3r exploring the Niederwald on donkeys, and 
visiting the Rheinstein, — a turretted old castle perched among 
rocks and woods high above the river, fitted up and inhabited by 
a Prince of Prussia, — we quitted the Rhine to take the road to 
Wiesbaden, where, as at other fashionable watering-places. Idle- 
ness holds an annual festival ; for the proportion is small of those 
who are here solely for the business of cure. Thence a short 
railroad carried us to Frankfort, famous for its biennial fairs, 
where merchants thickly congregate ; for the election and coro- 
nation in past centuries of the Emperors of Germany ; and most 
famous of all as the birth-place of Goethe, who as boy, among the 
other siglits and sounds that were teaching his young mind its 
powers, witnessed with greedy delight one of the imperial corona- 
tions, himself already appointed to a throne and*^ sway, firmer 
and wider than that of Emperors. Here were laid the founda- 



56 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

tions of a nature, the richest the earth has borne since Shak 
speare. 

Sir Egerton Brydges, that genial old man, says : — " A large 
part of the existence of a human being consists in thought and 
sentiment." Most true. Like air through the lungs, thought 
and emotion are curling unceasingly round the brain ; they are 
the atmosphere of the soul, as impalpable, yet as real and vital, 
as that we breathe. Without this lively presence of fiteling and 
thought, we cannot be as soul-endowed beings ; it is the state of 
mental life. Our friends, our neighbors, our children, are far 
off from us, in comparison with this sleepless inward offspring of 
the mind. Is it well-limbed, healthy, clean, we live the erect, 
loving, steadfast life of a genuine man ; is it deformed, crabbed ; 
our life is narrow, suspicious, timid. What a task, then, how 
high, how deep, to feed, to purify, to enlarge, to enrich this spring 
of every human movement, endeavor, puipo^e, deed. Such is 
the Poet's function, the noblest, the most useful. Through his 
sensibility to the beautiful, he sees furthest into the nature of 
things, goes down to the root of the matter, discerns in each class 
of being the original type, wherein Beauty has its perfect dwelling. 
Embodying the visions thus had, in moulds which each creates 
for itself, he brings before his fellow-men mirrors, wherein they 
behold themselves, their thoughts and feelings, subtilized, exalted 
— magic mirrors, whose images, glowing with almost supernatu- 
ral effulgence, are yet felt to be true. For poetry is a distillation 
of Beauty out of the feelings and doings of daily life, and a poem 
is but the finest, maturest fruit of impulses, which exist in, and 
openly or secretly control, the most prosaic worker in a trading 
community. Who so base or dull, but has had moments of spi- 
ritual abstraction, when his wliole being was penetrated with un- 
earthly light, whereby all things, as it were transfigured, looked 
calm and joyfuf? Breathes there a man, not blasted with idiocy 
in whom at times a gorgeous sunset would not awaken emotion, 



GOETHE. 57 

whose heart would not open to the mystic beauty of the midnight 
sky, who has not felt, though but for an instant, a quickening 
impulse towards perfection ? Such moods the poet fosters, awa- 
kens, confirms. He teaches the mind to use its wings : he peoples 
it witii richer possibilities. The Poet is the highest of educators. 
AVith the gushings of the young untainted heart, mingle his warm 
expansive thoughts, and as years ripen, we embrace more closely 
the truths he has melodiously unfolded, unconscious often whence 
they have come. 

The fortune of worldly position and of length of years, favored 
the pi'e-eminent genius of Goethe, in performing the great task 
of the poet in a way unparalleled in these latter times. No 
man of the age has so widened the intellectual horizon of his 
country, so deepened and freshened the common sea of thought, 
so enriched the minds of his contemporaries with images of beauty 
and power. Among the heartless, senseless complaints against 
Goethe,-.— as such will be made against the greatest, — that of his 
want of patriotism is the most vapid. Let the man be pointed to 
who has done so much to enlighten, to elevate Germany. He 
has thus contributed more towards the liberty of his country than 
any score of " Liberals," even though they be genuine ones. 
There is a fitness in his being born at Frankfort, at once the 
capital of Germany and a free town. Saving Luther, there is 
none other who better deserves the title of Father of his country. 

His fellow citizens are about to raise to him a colossal statue in 
Frankfort. In the neighboring town of Mayence, a noble one, 
designed by Thorwaldsen, has been lately erected to Gutemberg. 
Goethe and Gutemberg will be side by side. They belong 
together; the one, the German who invented types, the other, 
the German who has made the best use of them. 

A day sufficed for Frankfort. The most beautiful thing they 
have to show, is Dannecker's statue of Ariadne. For our route 
towards Switzerland we chose what is called the mountain roaj, 
4* 



58 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



which traverses one of the most fertile plains of Europe, bounded 
on the East by a range of hills, sloping up into soft valleys and 
Vi^ooded heights, with here and there a ruined castle to connect 
the fresh-looking landscape with the olden time. Our first night 
was at Weinheim, an ancient town begirt with towers, and snugly 
seated, amidst orchards and vineyards, at the foot of the hills. 
Early before breakfast, I walked up to the old castle of Windeck. 
I met people going out to work ; they looked mostly hunger- 
pinched and toil-bent. To how many is the earth a cold pi'ison, 
instead of the fair warm garden Nature offers it. To none, even 
the most favored, is life what it might be. When will men's 
aims be truer, and their means juster, and existence cease to be 
a harrying scramble ? The earth is yet shadowed by the scowl 
of man upon his fellow. Natui'e is most rich and bountiful, 
would we but live after her law. The resources are within and 
about us ; and a Christian must believe that they will be awakened 
and improved, till man at last smiles upon man. 

A night rain had sweetened the air and land for our morning 
drive to Heidelberg, which was the next stage. We spent an 
hour among the broad ruins of the famed castle, saw the streets 
lively with students, joyous intelligent looking youths, sought out 
two or three young Americans at their lodgings, and then went 
again rolling smoothly on our journey, to end the day at Carlsruhe 
(Charles' rest), the capital of the Grand Duchy of Baden. The 
next day we dined at Baden — Baden, the celebrated watering- 
place, lying beautifully in a stream-enlivened valley, between 
gentle hills, overrun for mibs with shady walks and drives. 

The Cursaal, containing the spacious public saloons and ball- 
rooms, and furnished like a palace, is the general resort in the 
evening. Here are the gambling-tables, three or four of them, 
all plying at the same time their silent gloomy trade. Round 
each large oval table, with its wheel of destiny in tho^ centre, and 
its fine green cloth covered with figures and mystic divisions, waa 



GAMBLING-TABLES. 59- 



a crowd of spectators and players, standing or seated. To par- 
take of the scene actively and from its midst, I joined one of them, 
throwing down occasionally among the twinkling gold pieces and 
fat piastres a pale florin, the lowest stake allowed. The players 
were of various conditions and ages and aspects ; a few of them 
mere players, to whom it was an arithmetical trial, a sportful 
excitement, like one young Englishman who gaily scattered a 
handful of Napoleons at a throw, choosing, as though he could 
choose, the numbers to stake on, dallying carelessly with Fortune. 
But out of the fixed serious countenances of most, stared the- 
Demon of gain. He must have laughed one of his bitterest 
laughs at his dupes. The scene would have adorned Spenser's 
cave of Mammon. In the glare of a large overhangins: light, a 
circle of human beings intent upon gold, and all the features of 
Avarice concentrated in haggard unity on one little spot. A 
circle, but without bond of mnion; each pursuing his end in sel- 
fish isolation, unmindful of his neighbor, except when Envy 
stirred at his good fortune ; absorbed, possessed by the one feel- 
ing ; his whole nature quenched under its cold tyranny ; his 
visage lialf petrified by the banishment of all other thought. — It 
had too its poetic side ; the hope ever renewed ; the mysterious 
source of the decree, coming out of unfathomable depths ; its 
absoluteness, representing perfectly the inexorableness of Fate. 

Before entering on our route through the Black Forest to 
Schaffhausen in Switzerland, we made a circuit of half a day by 
Strasburg, to see the Cathedral, one of the most beautiful of 
Gothic churches, the pinnacle of whose spire is the highest point 
ever reached in an edifice of human hands, being twenty- 
four feet higher than the great Pyramid of Egypt. These airy 
Gothic structures, rising lightly from the earth, as if they were a 
growth out of it, look, amidst the common houses about them, liks 
products of another race. They have an air of inspiration. 
Their moulds were thoughts made musical by deep feeling. 



60 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

'Hiey are the Poems of an age when Religion yearned for 
glorious embodiment. They declare the beauty and grandeur 
of the human mind, that it could conceive and give birth to a thing 
so majestic. Those high-springing vaults ; those far-stretching 
aisles, solemnized by hues from deeply colored windows ; those 
magnificent vistas, under roof; those outward walls, so gigantic, and 
yet so light with flying buttresses and tlie relief of delicate tracery ; 
that feathery spire, which carries the eyes far away from the eartli ; 
to think, that the whole wondrous fabric, so huge and graceful, so 
solid and airy, so complex and harmonious, as it stands thee before 
you, stood first, in its large beautiful completeness, in ti.e brain 
of its architect, Erwin von Steinbach. Those great builders of 
the middle ages have not been duly known ; their names are not 
familiar, as they should be, like those of the great painters. 

Strasburg, and Alsace, of which it was formerly the capital, 
though long in the possession of France, are German still in lan- 
guage and customs. The original character of a people clings to 
it through all kinds of outward vicissitudes. This is strongly 
exemplified in the French themselves. The exact similarity 
between certain prominent features in the ancient Gauls and 
the modern French, shows with what fidelity mental qualities 
are transmitted through advancing stages of civilisation, and 
what permanent unfailing effects, soil, atmosphere and climate 
exert upon the character of a people. The Gauls were as noted 
for the fury of their first onset in their battles with Csesar, as the 
French were at Agincourt and in the Spanish Peninsula, and 
seem to have been discomfited by the steadfastness of the Romans 
precisely in the way their descendants were by the cooler cou- 
rage of the British. Winkelman, endeavoring to show the effects 
of air and nourishment on national character, states, that accord- 
ing to the Emperor Julian there were in his day more dancers in 
Paris than citizens, and I have somewhere seen this quotation 
from Cato j — Duas res Gens Gallica industriosissime persequiturt 



ZURICH, GOLDAU. 61 



rem militarem el argute loqui : — Two things the Gallic people cul- 
tivate most diligently, military atlliirs and glibness of speech. 

In a day and a half we reached Schafl'hausen by Homberg and 
Donauschiiigen. At Schafl'hausen we had to resign the comfort of 
post-horses. The inn-keepers of Switzerland, a numerous and 
■wealthy class, have influence enough, it is said, to prevent the 
introduction of the posting-system, it being of course their interest 
to have travellers move slowly. On the way to Zurich, we stopped 
an hour a few miles below Schafl'hausen, to see the Falls of the 
Rhine, the finest in Europe, and well deserving their fame. In 
the afternoon we had the first view of the snow-capt mountains. 
Far before us, fifty or sixty miles off", they lay along the horizon 
like a bank of silver. We approached Zurich, descending among 
gardens, and vineyards, and villas, with the lake and town in view. 
The evening hour of arrival is always a cheerful one to the 
traveller, and it is trebly so, when the smiling welcome of " mine 
host " is preceded by such a greeting as this from Nature. We 
had time before dark to enjoy the wide prospect from the top of 
the Hotel. The sublimities of Switzerland were still remote, but 
we were already encompassed by its beauties. 

The next morning we started early, intending to sleep that 
night on the top of the Righi. Crossing before breakfast Moun; 
Albis, from whose southern side the mountains about the Lake of 
the four Cantons came grandly into view, we descended upor' 
Zug, passing through which and along the northern shore of its 
lake, we reached Arth at one ; whence, at half-past two, we com 
menccd the journey up the Righi on horseback with a guide. Th( 
ascent begins a mile east of Goldau, one of the villages destroyed 
by the fall of the Rossberg in 1806. Conceive of a slip of rock 
and earth two miles long, one-fifth of a mile wide, and one hun- 
dred feet thick, loosened from the summit of a mountain five 
thousand feet high, rushing down its side into the valley below. 
It overwhelmed three villages with five hundred of their inhabit- 



62 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE 

ants, and spread desolation over several miles of the valley. We 
passed through the terrific scene, a chaos of rock and rubbish, 
where Goldau had been. Huge blocks of stone, as large some of 
thenri as a small house, were forced up the Righi far above the 
site of Goldau. There are traditions of similar slides from this 
same mountain in past ages, and still higher up were scattered 
other blocks which the guide said had come on one of those oc- 
casions from the Rossberg, three or four miles distant. We were 
more than three hours ascending, and went up jnto a cloud, which 
e:lveloped the top of the mountain, so that we had no sunset. The 
cioud passed away in the night. 

The next morning before dawn, with cloaks about us, we were 
out. From the top of this isolated peak, a mile above the lakes 
at its base, we saw light break slowly over the earth, as yet with- 
out form in the darkness. We had almost a glimpse of the creative 
mystery. We were up in the heavens, and beheld the Spirit of 
God move upon the face of the earth. We witnessed with mag- 
nificent accompaniment the execution of the mandate, — Let there 
be Light. The peaks in the sun's path rose first out of darkness 
to meet the coming dawn, their jagged outline fringed with grey, 
then with gold. Day had hardly broke about us, when off to the 
south fifty miles a rosy tint shone on the snowy heads of the 
Bernese Alps, the first to answer the salutation of the Sun. Soon, 
the summits of all the mountains rose up in the growing day, a 
world of peaks, the giant offspring of the Earth awakened by the 
Morning. Below was still twilight. Gradually light came down 
the mountains and rolled away the veil of night from the plain. 
The Sun grew strong enough to send his rays into the valleys, 
and opened the whole sublime spectacle, — a spectacle affluent in 
sublimities, that lifted the Thoughts out of their habits, and swelled 
them to untried dimensions. The eye embraced an horizon of 
three hundred miles circuit ; the Mind could not embrace the 
wealth of grandeur and beauty disclosed. Towards the west, 



THE RIGHI. ' 6.1 



the view ranged over what from such a height seemed an immense 
plain, .bounded by the far dim Jura ; an indistinct landscape, with 
woods, and rivers, and lakes ; or, rather, a hundred landscapes 
melted into one, that took in several of the largest, most fertile 
cantons, covering thousands of square miles. Turning round, we 
stood amazed before the stupendous piles of mountain. From 
five to fifty miles away, in a vast semicircle, rose in wondrous 
throng their wild bulks — rugged granite or glittering snow, tower, 
ing in silent grandeur, an upper kingdom, their heads in the sky. 
They looked alive as with a spectral life, brought from the 
mysterious womb of the Earth. You gaze, awed, baffled, in 
their majestic presence, overwhelmed by the very sublimity of 
size. 

We had come up by the north path, we went down by the south. 
What a walk on a sunny morning ! Down we went, nearer and 
nearer to the beautiful lake right under us, plunging deeper and 
deeper into the magical scenery of its shores. We reached Weggis 
in two hours and a half. The perpendicular height from the level 
of tlie lake to the pinnacle of the Righi is about a mile ; in the 
descent I must have walked seven or eight. By steamboat we 
reached Lucerne at one. From Lucerne we looked back down 
the lake at the throng of mountains that rose out of its watersand 
crowded the eastern horizon. A slight haze made the sun shine 
on them more warmly. The scene was like a vision, so strange 
was it and beautiful. 

The same afternoon we left Lucerne and slept at Entlebuch, 
whence the next day we came to Berne, traversing the broad 
cantons of Lucerne and Berne, through a country abundant in 
crops and landscapes. -Our attempt to see some of the splendors 
of the Bernese Oberland was frustrated by the weather ; so that, 
after going from Thun to Brienz, through their two lakes, we 
turned back in the rain, having merely got a momentary glimpse 
at Interlaachen of the Yungfrau. We made a long day Ironi 



6i scf::^es and thoughts in Europe. 

Berne to Lausanne, passing through Freyburg, the stronghold of • 
Romanism in Switzerland, remarkable for the singularity an3 
picturesqueness of its position, high up in one of the bends of the 
river Saane ; for its suspension bridge — the longest in the world — 
one hundred and seventy feet above the river which it spans ; for 
its Convents and Jesuits' College, and for the dirtiness of its 
streets. A transparent morning for the drive from Lausanne 
along the shore of Lake Leman to Geneva, gave us a clear view 
of Mont Blanc, more than sixty miles off. We reached Geneva 
on the 17th of August. 

Ca.vin, Rousseau. An old town that hasn't its great men is 
tasteless to the traveller. These two give the flavor to Geneva. 
Of necessity far apart in time, for one would think th'^ spirit of 
Calvin must have been well-nigh worn-out or dormant ere tne little 
Republic could have engendered a Rousseau. I figure Calvin as 
gaunt, fleshless ; a man of a gritty substance, on whom flesh couldn't 
grow. A nature tough as steel, unbending as granite — as was 
needed for his task. With what a bold bitina; lash he scoursed 
the sensualities of his time ! How he defied the principalities | 
of the earth ! How he scorned the tempests of papal, and regal, * 
and popular, wrath ! They did but invigorate his will, sublimate 
his genius, for the building up of a power that was to stretch over 
many nations and endure for ages. He would not have been Cal- 
vin had he not burned Servetus. This crime was the correlative 
of his virtue. It condensed with the heartiness and earnestness, 
the austerity and narrowness of Calvinism. His followers con- 
tinued and continue to burn Servetuses after a different fashion. X 
Honor to the patriarch of the Puritans. y 

Calvin, who was not born in Geneva, became there a ruler ; 
Rousseau, who was, doesn't seem to have been held of much ac- 
count by his townsmen, until lately, when they have erected to 
him a statue, more out of pride probably than love. Rousseau 
was made of anything but granite ; an unstable tremulous nature, 



VALLi;V C.- rilK KliOiNK. 65 



devoured by passions which yet hadn't life enough to energize him. 
His lite-long sorrows were of tlie Werterian kind, but he had'nt 
the strength to shoot hiniseif. lie was a Werter manque. Yet 
ho too did a large share of good. In a time of coldness and mis- 
belief, he helped to bring men to the knowledge of the truths and 
beauties of Nature, and of the resources of tiieir hearts, through 
which knowledge alone can there be fruitful love of God. And 
this indeed, in different moods, is the office of all thinkers. Even 
Rousseau's sentimentality, insipid or sickening now, was .savory 
and healing to his sophisticated generation. Had his writings 
had no other effect than to re-awaken in the hearts of so mamy 
mothers the duty of nursing their own infants, he would deserve 
well of the Christian world. 

Flokekce, October, 1841. 

We remained at Geneva a fortnight, preparing for Italy. On 
the third of September we set out by the route of the Simplon, 
along the southern shore of the Lake and up the valley of the 
Rhone, sleeping the first night in Martigny, the second in Brigg, 
at the foot of the pass. The valley of the Rhone is generally 
level, barren, and subject to inundation. The long day's drive 
irom Martigny to Brigg was of less interest than any we had had 
in Switzerland. The valley, almost unpeopled, without deep 
verdure or the softness of tillage, desolate without being wild, 
offers no pictures to the eye ; and the mountains that enclose it, 
are bare and cold without elevation enough for grandeur. This 
is one of the worst regions for goitre and cretinism. Before noon 
we stopped to change horses in the public square of Slon, the 
capital of the canton of Valais. Happening to be a market day, 
there was a throng of people in the square. An assemblage of 
such unsightly human beings I never beheld. Nearly all looked 
as if they were more or less under the blight, whose extreme 
effect is the idiocy called cretinism. Mostly of a pallid Indian 
hue, with lank black hair, they had a strange weird look. 



SCP:ME.S AM) THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



At Brijjo whilst we were Jiettinc ready to start in the morniiiff 
the "master of the liotel, whose son or son-in-law had the furnish- 
ing of horses, came to inform me that I should have to take six 
for the ascent. I represented to him that for a carriage like mine 
four would be as sufficient as six, and that it would be unreason, 
able, unjust, and contrary to his own printed regulations to 
impose the additional two upon me. The man insisting, I objected, 
then remonstrated, then protested. All to no purpose. I then 
sought out the burgomaster of the town, to whom with suitable 
emphasis I represented the case. He could not deny that the 
letter of the law was on my side. Whether or not he had the 
power to over-rule the post-master I don't know, but at all events 
)ny appeal to him had no practical result ; the carriage came to 
the door with six horses. I had the poor satisfaction of letting 
the inn-keeper hear his conduct worded in strong terms, and of 
threateni«ig him with public exposure in the guide-books as an 
extortioner, which threat acted most unpleasantly upon his feel- 
ings, and I hoped, kept him uncomfortable for some hours. 

What a contrast between the irritations and indignations of the 
morning, and the calm awed feelings of the day ! 'Twould be 
worth while for an army to be put into a towering passion at the 
base of the Simplon, just to have all anger quelled by the sub- 
duing sublimities of its sides and summit. As we went up the 
broad smooth road of .Napoleon, tlv3 gigantic mountains opened 
wider and wider their grandeurs, heaving up their mighty 
shoulders out of the abysses, at first dark with firs, and later, as 
we neared the top of the p^ss, shining far, far above us in snow 
that the sun had been bleaching for thousands of years. We 
crossed the path of an avalanche, a hundred feet wide, that had 
come down in the spring, making as clean a swarth through the 
big trees as a mower's scythe does in a wheatfield. We passed 
under solid arches, built, or cut through the rock, to shield 
travellers again.st these opake whirlwinds, these congealed hurri- 



i 



THE SIMPLON. e^ 



canes, this bounding brood of the white giantess, begotten on her 
vast icy Hanks by the near sun. On the summit of the pass, the 
snowy peaks still high above us, we came to the Hospice, and 
then- descending quietly on the southern side a couple of miles, 
reached about sunset the village of Simplon. At the quiet inn 
we were greeted by two huge dogs of the St. Bernard breed, who, 
with waggings of tail and canine smiles, seemed doino- the 
hospitalities of the mountain. Here we met two English ti-avellers, 
and spent a cheerful evening as the close to such a day. After 
a iound sleep under thick blankets we set off early the next 
morning. What a starting point, and what a morning's drive ! 
Ere noon we were to be in Italy, and the way to it was through 
the gorges of the Simplon. 

With wheel locked, we went off at a brisk trot. The road on 
the Italian side is much more confined than on the northern. 
Yesterday, we had the broad splendors, the expanded grandeurs, 
of the scene ; to day its condensed intenser sublimities. We soon 
found ourselves in a tunnel cut through a rock ; then sweeping 
down deeper and deeper into what seemed an endless abyss ; 
close on one side of us a black wall of rock, overhanging hundreds, 
thousands, of feet, and darkening the narrow path ; as close on 
the other a foaming torrent, leaping down as it were a wild 
creature rushing by us to head our track. Over dark chasms, 
under beetling precipices, across the deafening rush of waters, 
the smooth road carried us without a suggestion of danger, the 
wonders of the sublime pass all exhibited as freely as to the 
winged eagle's gaze ; as though Nature rejoiced in being thus 
mastered by Art. On we went, downward, downward. At last 
the descent slackens, the stream that had bounded and leapt beside 
us, runs among the huge rocky fragments, the gorge expands to 
a valley, the fresh foliage of chestnut trees shadows the road, the 
valley widens, the mountain is behind us, a broad even landscape 
before us, the air is soft, the sun shines hotly on fields where 



6S SCF.XES AXD THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



swarthy men are at work, — we are in Italy ! It was a passage 
from sublimity to beauty. We were soon among vines and strong 
vegetation. This then is Italy. How rich and warm it looks ! 
We entered Duomo d'Ossola, the first town : it looked solid and 
time-beaten. In a public square hard by where we stopped for 
a few minutes, was a plentiful show of vegetables and fruit, juicy 
peaches and heavy bunches of grapes. At a rapid pace we went 
forward towards Lake Maggiore. These are the " twice-glorified 
fields of Italy." This is beautiful, passionate Italy, the land of so 
much genius, and so much vice, and so much glory. This is the 
land, for centuries the centre of the world, that in boyhood and in 
manhood is so mixed in our thoughts, with its double column of 
shining names familiar to Christendom. It was late in the after- 
noon when at Fariolo we came upon the beautiful Lake. For 
ten or twelve miles the road ran on a terrace, whose wall was 
washed by its waters. About sunset we passed the Borromean 
Islands, the evening clear and bland. 'Twas after nightfall 
when we entered Arona. 

We had to-day an incident, which gave assurance that we 
were arrived in Italy, as convincing as did the beauty and fruit- 
fulness lavished upon this chosen land. Opposite in character to 
them, that have their source in bounty and love ; this, in penury of 
spirit and hate. It came too from one of " God's Vicegerents on 
Earth," although its nature smacked of paternity in the Prince of 
Darkness. God floods his creation with liberty and light, the 
which his vicegerents, Kings and Popes, are ever busy to smother, 
lest men be maddened and blinded by the too free use of Heaven's 
best gifts. God's vicegerents ! his counterworkers rather. They 
arc oftenest the very antidotes of light. Their God is Power, 
whom they worship with human sacrifices. Monarchies and 
Hierarchies are the tokens of man's weakness. The stronger 
they, the weaker he. As men strengthen, they dwindle. Tliey 
are like props planted beside a young tree, that having insidiously 



VEXATIONS. 69 

taken root, divert into themselves nourishment due to it, so tliat 
the tree languishes and perisiics, while they thrive and wax 
strong. They are the bridle put into tlie horse's moutli in the 
fiible, for his help, as he foolisldy thought, which became the 
instrument of his enslavement. They are the stewards of Custom, 
which is the tyranny of the lower human faculties over the higher. 
I once heard when a boy a stump-speaker at a " barbecue " 
declare, that a visit to Europe had made him a democrat. The 
process whereby this effect was wrought will be clear to most 
Americans who sojourn here for a time. As counterpoise to this, 
it will be but fair to mention that German Prince, who, becoming 
tainted with republicanism, was sent to the United States to be 
cured thereof, — and was cured. That man deserved a throne. 
But to the incident. 

At the Piedmontese frontier, the custom-house officer, who as 
usual examined but one of our trunks, hit upon the one that con- 
tained books. " Ah ! Books," said he ; "I must make a list of 
them." Hereupon he ordered his assistant to take them all out, 
my representations that they were solely for my own use, and 
that I was merely passing through Piedmont, having no effect. 
On first alighting, I heard one say to the other, " II Signore 6 
militare;" a conclusion which was probably dispelled by the 
sight of the contents of the trunk, and not, I think, to my ad van- 
tage. The making of the list was a long process, the officer 
having to write the titles that were not Italian letter by letter. 
The task seemed to him a hard and unaccustomed one. The 
subordinate displayed the title of each volume beside his princi- 
pal, I superintending the orthography. The assistant handled 
the books carefully and even tenderly, as though in his eyes they 
were things precious. The poor man, 1 fancied, looked at me 
with an expression of deferential regard, as one who possessed 
and had free access to such a treasure. Among them was Sil- 
vio Pellico's story of his imprisonment, in Italian. He turned it in 



70 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

his hands, looked into it, gently shuffling over the leaves, and 
quietly glancing from the volume to me, not at all as if he would 
beg it, but as if he transferred towards me some of the feeling 
the book awakened in him. He probably had heard vaguely of 
Pellico's martyrdom. The list finished, the books were repacked, 
and the trunk was leaded, that is, tied round with stout twine, 
over whose knot was pressed, with long pincers, a small leaden 
seal. The trunk was replaced on the carriage, and a paper was 
given me certifying its contents and the operation it had under, 
gone. This overhauling and list-taking was but the commence 
ment of the vexation. The. Jiext day, — to make an end of the 
story, — on passing out of Piedmont, an officer was sent with us to 
see the sealed trunk delivered unbroken at the custom-house of 
Lombardy, some distance off. It was just as if I had had a 
criminal in company, and Piedmont warned Austria of his dan- 
ger. Books, in truth, are criminals in both countries. On 
arriving at Milan I was obliged, before driving to the hotel, to go 
first to the custom-house, to leave in safe keeping the mysterious 
trunk, as big with mischief as the Grecian Horse to the Trojans, 
but luckily by the vigilance of Piedmont its diabolical purport 
was revealed to Austria. Quitting Milan I had to call for it, to 
leave it again at the Piedmontese custom-house on re-entering 
Piedmont on the road to Genoa ; for I found that otherwise, owing 
to a press of business there, I should be delayed two or three 
hours. It came after me the next day to Genoa, where, not to 
have any more frontier troubles, I left it, to be sent to Florence, 
which it reached several days later, bringing with it a bill against 
me, for separate travelling charges, of ten dollars. This affair, 
trifling as it appears, marred the enjoyment of our first days in 
Italy. It makes a man, too, feel little, to find himself utterly de- 
fenceless against such pitiful abuses from low officials. 

Through the bountiful plains of Lombardy, we had a short 
day's drive from Arena to Milan, passing near the first battle-field 



MILAN. 71 

between Seipio and Hannibal. Entering Milan by the arch of the 
Simplon, we came first upon the broad Parade, or Pkicc d' Amies, 
where the cannon are kept always loaded, Milan being the capi- 
tal of the Austrian Lombardo- Venetian Provinces, and residence 
of the Imperial Viceroy. The two principal objects of Milan 
are, Leonardo da Vinci's great picture of the last supper, and the 
cathedral, a vast, beautiful, gothic structure of white marble, 
from whose roof ascends a forest of light pinnacles and marble 
needles, surmounted by statues. Around, upon and within the 
church are two or three thousand statues, numbers of them the 
effigies of benefactors. Conspicuous on a pinnacle was one of 
Napoleon. A gift of cash to the church will obtain for the donor 
the honor of a statue, its prominence and elevation being measured 
by the amount bestowed. What inventive genius these solemn 
gentlemen of the robe have always shown in unloosing the clasp 
of money-clutching man ! What a scent they have for the trail 
of gold ! A traveller relates, that passing through " the noble 
little state of Connecticut," and stopping to bait in one of its 
dreariest townships, he asked a tall raw-boned man, who was 
measuring him keenly with his eye, what the people did in so 
barren a country for a living : " When we can catch a stranger, 
we skin him, and when we cant, we skin one another." I defy 
the leanest native in the stoniest part of Connecticut, to devise the 
means more shrewdly for compassing a given dollar, than these 
ghostly bachelors. From the roof of the cathedral we looked down 
into the opulent city beneath, and far away over the rich plain 
of Lombardy. To the west, as distant as the pass of the Simplon, 
was visible the snowy head of Mount Rosa. 

We left Milan after forty-eight hours, and were a day and a 
half on the road to Genoa, sleeping the first night in a clean good 
inn at Novi. Some miles out of Milan, not far from Pavia, we 
stopped to see the famous Chartreuse, with its beautiful church 
and dozen little chapels, each one enriched with precious mar- 



72 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

bles exquisitely wrought and inlaid, whereon millions have been 
spent in work and materials. Madame de Stael said, that Genoa 
has the air of having been built by a Congress of Kings. We 
walked through its streets of palaces, searching the palaces them- 
selves for pictures, which is the chief and pleasantest occupation 
of the stranger passing through Italian cities. From the best 
points we had a survey of the town and harbor. The port is 
very active, and Genoa is growing in population, commerce and 
wealth. What a country this beautiful Italy would be, if it could 
drive out the foreigner, if it could shake off ecclesiastical domi- 
nation, if it could bind itself up into a single nation, if — but there 
are too many ifs. 

We were glad to find ourselves on the third day out of Genoa 
on the road along the shore of the Mediterranean. It takes some 
time to get accustomed to Italian cities and ways. One has too a 
feeling of loneliness, which custom never entirely overcomes, in 
a large crowded town, where you know not a soul, and have 
speech with none but hirelings ; so that, after having " seen all 
the sights," you are cheered by departure, and smile upon the 
Cerberus at the gate, who stops your carriage to learn from your 
passport that you have the right to go. Starting from Genoa in 
the afternoon, we slept the first night at Chiavari, the second at 
Massa. The Mediterranean on the right, valleys and hills on 
the left ; the road winding, mounting, descending with the move- 
ments of the shore, where land and sea are gently interlocked ; 
compact towns nestled in the green bosom of valleys, the moun- 
tains behind, the sea belbre them ; vines gracefully heavy with 
purple grapes, festooned from tree to tree ; — these are the chief 
features of the day-long picture. From Massa, seated by the 
water, with a shield of marble mountains against the north, we 
started early on the sunny morning of the 16th of September, 
wishing to reach Florence before dark. We soon left tlie sea, 
and crossing the mountain range, went down on the other side 



LUCCA. 73 

into the territory of Lucca, among hills clothed with chestnut and 
olive, and fields the gardens of Plenty, the sun shining warmly, 
the earth breathing fragrantly through its leafy abundance. 
Valery, in his excellent guide-book, recommended to me by 
Wordsworth (Murray's wasn't yet published) says of Lucca ; — 
" Un certain perfectionnement social et philosophique parait avoir 
pr^valu pendant long temps dans ce petit etat, qui n 'eut jamais 
de Jesuites. L'Encyclopedie y fut re-imprimee en 28 vol. folio, 
1758-7 L" Surely the Lucchese were wise to keep out the 
Jesuits ; for priestly venom, which so poisons in Italy the cup of 
life, festers nowhere to bitterer virulence than in that dehuman- 
ized corporation. But the letting in of such a flood of French 
philosophy, as is implied by a reprint of the renowned Encyclope. 
die, that was a questionable proceeding. Yet after all, Voltaire, 
Diderot and their associates sharpened and helped to disenthral 
the intellect of the Christian world ; they opened the eyes of men, 
though they could not tell them what it was best to look at. Va- 
lery, whose book is that of a man of letters, and is a mine of 
minute historical, biographical and miscellaneous information, lets 
go no opportunity of bringing France and Frenchmen before his 
readers. Always cheerful and polished, he is a thorough zealous 
Frenchman, who neither disturbs nor is himself disturbed by the 
stiffest nationalism of another. 

While changing horses in Lucca, we were tempted by voluble 
domestiques de 'place with enumeration of the sights of the town ; 
but our eyes and hearts were set upon Florence. The post- 
master questioned us eagerly, how many carriages were behind. 
Now is his autumnal harvest. The English, to whom all other 
travellers are so much indebted for the cleanliness and comfort 
of the inns on the Continent, are swarming southward. Soon 
after quitting Lucca we entered Tuscany, — proud Tuscany, in 
bygone times, the intellectual centre of Italy, the home of her 
language, the warm nest of genius, the cradle of her giants, of 
5 



74 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Dante, of Michael Angelo, of Bocaccio, of Petrarca, of Leonardo 
da Vinci, of Machiavelli, of Galileo. By Pistora and Prato, we 
drove along the south-western base of the Appenines, and through 
fields closely tilled up to the trunks of the olive, the mulberry, 
and the vfne, and among white villas glistening in the western 
sun, we approached the high walls of Florence. 

Nature and Art contend the one with the other in beautifying 
Florence. Except westward, where the Arno flows towards the 
sea, all about her are gentle hills that have come down from 
mountains, visible here and there in the distance. The Appenines 
and the Arno have scooped out a site, which man has made much 
of. The moment you pass out of almost any one of the gates, 
smooth gentle paths tempt you up heights, as if eager to exhibit 
some of the fairest landscapes even of Italy. In twenty or thirty 
minutes, you turn round to a view embracing the dome-crowned 
town, with its spacious leafy gardens, and far-stretching valley, 
and the countless heights and mountains which, bestudded with 
white villas, churches, convents, and clothed with the vine and 
olive, lie all round " the most beautiful daughter of Rome." 
Towards sunset, seen through that purple haze, which gives it a 
voluptuous, sleepy aspect, the landscape, so beautiful from its 
forms and combinations, looks almost like an illusion, a magical 
diorama. Carefully guarded within the walls, are many of the 
loveliest offspring of the Arts, ever fresh with the grace of genius; 
without them. Nature unrolls her indestructible beauties, height- 
ened by Art and the associations of creative thought. Within 
the same hour, you may stand before the Venus of Cleomenes 
and on the tower of Galileo, which overlooks Florence and the 
vale of the Arno ; before the Madonna of Raphael, and on the 
"top of Fiesole." 

Even where the accumulations of Time are the most choice, 
the curiosities outnumber by much the beauties ; so that the 
sight-seer has some weary and almost profitless hours, and re 



FLORENCE. 75 



joices occasionally like Sterne, when the keys could not be found 
of a church he went to see. It is true, sight-showing has become 
60 lucrative, that he seldom has that pleasant disappointment. 
Neither, on the other hand, does one like to miss anything, nor to 
do by halves what one has come so far to do. There are things 
loo that are not much in the seeing, but that it is well to carry 
away the memory of having seen. The rapid traveller through 
crowded Italy, must therefore work nimbly with body and mind, 
from morn till night, to accomplish his labor of love. As we 
have the winter before us in Florence, we proceed here in a more 
idle and gentlemanly way. We can lounge among the marvels 
of the Pitti and the Uffizii, and let the mood of the moment prompt 
us what to sit before, without self-reproach, postponing the rest 
till to-morrow, or next week, or next month ; or we can even let 
a whole day go over, without setting eyes on a picture or a statue 
or a church. Some of our first and pleasantest hours were spent 
in the studios and company of our own sculptors. It is much 
for a stranger, to have here fellow-countrymen of character and 
intelligence, who rank with the best as artists. 

The first fortnight after our arrival, the town was enlivened by 
the presence of a Scientific Congress, numbering nearly nine 
hundred members, mostly Italians, to whom the amiable Grand 
Duke did the honors of his capital in graceful and munificent 
style. Among his hospitalities, was a dinner given at the Poggio 
Imperiale, one of his villas a mile out of the Roman Gate. Nine 
hundred guests were received in the suite of elegant drawing- 
rooms on the first floor, and sat down in the second to tables sup- 
plied with as much taste as luxury. 'Twas a brilliant animated 
scene. After dinner, toasts were drank, and short sprightly 
speeches made amidst vivas and bravos. The guests were all 
carried to and from the villa in carriages furnished by the host. 
As we drove back in the evening, my three Italian chance-com. 
panions vied in commendation of the courtesy and liberality of 



76 SCENES AND TIIO'JGIIT.i IN EUROPE. 

the Grand Duke. At last, one ot" them, a tall, stout, comfortable 
shrewd-looking man of about fifty, a priest too, I thmk, informed 
us, that he had come against orders, for he lived in the dominions 
of the Pope (who, with the arch-priestly dread of light, prohibits 
his subjects from attending these Congresses), and that he was 
the only representative from the papal states. To this disclosure 
the other two said not a word, and I dare say, what in me rose 
as a suspicion, mounted in them to pretty nearly a brimming con- 
viction, namely, that our portly papal fellow-passenger was thsre 
for the purpose of taking notes quite other than scientific. 

The crowning scene to the proceedings of the Congress was 
its last meeting in full session, in the large hall of the old Palace. 
Seven or eight hundred Italians, educated men, numbers of them 
men of thought, a noble-looking assemblage of heads. The pui'- 
pose of their meeting I overlooked in the bare fact of such a con- 
vocation in that hall, where in the olden times of popular so- 
vereignty were heard the stirring accents of free deliberation. 
May it be an omen of better days,' when an assemblage as large 
and enlightened shall meet on the same spot for even higher ob- 
jects, and with the new vivifying feeling, that at last they have 
become once more thoroughly men ! 

Florbnce, May, 1842. 

One can lead here for a season an intellectual life without 
much mental effort, with enough of activity to keep it in a re- 
ceptive state ; and the miiid will lay up stores of impressions, to 
ripen hereafter into thought. The Past opens to the stranger 
rich pastures, wherein if he can but feed with healthy instincts, 
he will assimilate into himself abundantly of the old. The crea- 
tive spirits of bygone periods invite him to communion ; all they 
ask of him, is sympathy with their labor. Even the Poets exact- 
not for the enjoyment of them, that vigorous co-operation in the 
•reader, which Wordsworth justly intimates is necessary from 



CLIMATE. 77 

his. The best Italian poetry is more superficial than the best 
English. It is based upon, not also impregnated throughout with 
thought. It has more of music and sentiment, of form and grace. 
Only Dante obliges you to gather yourself up as for a fraternal 
wrestle. Alfieri at first somewhat, until you have found the key 
to his mind, which has not many wards. 

A scale of the occupations, pastimes, idleness, of a semi-pas- 
sive half year in Florence, would have at its basis the walks and 
drives in the Cascine and environs. But first, a word about the 
climate. It is much like ours of the middle states, except that 
our winter is colder and drier. An American is surprised at this 
similarity on arriving in Italy, having got his notions from English 
writers, who, coming from their cloudy northern island, are en- 
chanted with the sunny temperance of an Italian winter, and op- 
pressed by the heats of summer. The heat is not greater than 
it is in Maryland, and our winter is finer, certainly than that of 
Florence, being drier, and though colder, at the same time sun- 
nier. As with us, the autumn, so gloomy in England, is cheer- 
ful, clear, and calm, holding on till Cliristmas. They have 
hardly more than two cold months. Already in March the spring 
is awake, and soon drives back Winter, first into the highest 
Appenines, where he clings for a brief space, and thence retreats 
up to the topmost Alps, not to reappear for nine or ten months. 
Nor is that beautiful child of the light and air, the Italian sunset, 
more beautiful than the American. 

Walking or driving ; — the opera, theatre, and company ; — the 
galleries of painting and sculpture, and the studios of artists ; — 
reading and study at home. Thus and in this gradation would 1 
divide the hours of a man of leisure in Florence, especially if he 
be one whose nerves oblige him to lead a life of much more gen- 
tlemanly idleness, than with a perfectly eupeptic stomach he 
would choose. I put walking and driving first, as being, althougl* 
Uie most innocent, the most absolute forms of idleness. Tho 



78 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Cascine, a public promenade, just out of the western gate of the 
town, stretching a couple of miles down the right bank of the 
Arno, cannot be surpassed in situation and resources by anything 
similar in Europe. In warm weather, you have close shade, and 
in cold, the sun all along the margin of the stream, with a hedge 
and groves of pine and ilex as a cover against the tramontana or 
north wind. Thither on Sundays and other holidays resort the 
people at large, and every day in fine weather, the free and the 
fashionable, including among the former, monks, white and 
brown, whom I see here almost daily in shoals, with a sigh at the 
waste of so much fine muscle. 

On the Continent, not a town of twenty thousand inhabitants, — 
nay, of fifteen or ten, but has its theatre, for operas or comedies 
at stated seasons. Music and the theatre are not, as with us, an 
occasional accidental amusement, but an habitual resource : they 
have an honorable place in the annual domestic budget, even of 
families of small means. Music is part of the mental food of the 
Italians. It is to them a substitute for the stronger aliment of 
freer countries. May it not be, that the bounds set to mental 
development in other spheres, are in part the cause of the fuller 
cultivation of this ? Nature always strives to compensate herself 
for losses and lesions. Life, if cramped on one side, will often 
swell proportionably in another. Music has been to Italy a solace 
and a vent in her long imprisonment. This is not, of course, an 
endeavor to account for the origin of musical genius in Italy : 
original aptitudes lie far deeper than human reason can ever 
sound : but, that the people has musical habits, is probably in a 
measure owing to such influences. I don't remember ever to 
have heard an Italian whistle. They are too musical, the empti- 
est of them, for that arid futility. They sing as they go for want 
of thought ; and late at night 'tis most cheerful to hear, moving 
through the street, laden with airs from operas, mellow voices 
that die sweetly away in the stillness, to be followed by others, 



MUSIC. 79 

sometimes several in chorus. To me there is always somethingr 
soothing and hopeful in this spontaneous buoyant melody, the final 
sounds of the Italian's day. 

As nothing in Art is more marketable than musical talent, 
London and Paris take, and keep, to tliemselves the first adepts. 
To the gifted songsters of the South, — whose warmth seems essen- 
tial to the perfecting of the human musical organ, — showers of 
gold make amends for showers of orange-blossoms ; and the daz- 
zling illumination of palaces and sumptuous theatres, for the bril- 
liancy of their native sky. Italy scarcely hears, in the fulness 
af their powers, her Pastas, Malibrans, Grisis, Lablaches, Rubinis. 
Their gifts once discerned, they are wafted across the Alps, to 
share the caresses, the triumphs, the largesses of the great 
northern capitals. When their career is run, the most of them 
come back to their never-forgotten home. The dear, beautiful, 
sorrow-stricken mother, who gave them their cradles, — and who 
alone could give them, — gives them too a tomb. Florence there- 
fore has no richly equipt opera. In Italy itself, Naples and Milan 
have choice before her. 

The Opera is not a perfectly pure form of Art. It is a forced 
marriage between language and action on the one side, and music. 
The poetry of the language is smothered by the music, while on 
the other hand words often clog the wings of melody. Language 
and action are definite, music is vague. In their union, the 
indefiniteness of music is resisted, the distinctness of words is 
obliterated by a haze, albeit a golden haze. In the compromise, 
whereby the union is brought about, some violence is done to the 
nature of each. The effect of music is best when its source is 
invisible. This mode of presentation accords with its nature ; 
for music is a voice from the depths of the infinite, — a disembodied 
spirit, delivering its message through the least substantial medium 
of access, — sound. The glaring showiness, the pomp and cor- 
poreal effort of the stage, are an obstruction to its airy aspirations. 



80 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

"While to the dramatic reality the music imparts a lightness and 
poetic transparence, by these coarse material .forms some of its 
own life is absorbed. Of all Art the genuine effect is, to exalt 
the tone of the mind, to refine its temper. Even the knowledge 
communicated is but incidental, altogether subsidiary to a fruit- 
fuller gain. Facts, history. Art uses merely as vehicles, to con- 
vey to the mind its offerings of beauty. The results of Art are 
not, like scientific acquirements, tangible, measureable ; they 
are chiefly in the mood awakened. The deepest, grandest truths, 
which it is the function of Art to reveal and illustrate, are pre- 
sented in an indirect way. A noble poem leaves the mind of the 
reader in an expanded state. He feels a higher, clearer con- 
sciousness of life, a broader hope, a refreshed content. Available 
facts have not been piled away in his memory ; but his best sus- 
ceptibilities have been stimulated ; his nature has been attuned 
on a higher key than common ; he has a quickened sensation of 
freedom, of nobility. He is lifted into a higher state of being, 
and in that state is apter for the performance of all practical 
duties. Herein consists the noble usefulness of poetry, of Art. 
This mental exaltation, this disenthralment of the spirit from all 
gross bonds, good music especially never fails to produce. I<^3 
opening voice is a grateful summons to the spiritual part of our 
nature. The glare, bustle and complex movements of the stage, 
make a confusion of effects. The spectacle, busying the senses, 
unstrings the rapt intentness of the spirit. The joyful calm 
and solemnity of the religious mood, always created by the best 
music, is rulfied. 

For a really good society, two things are requisite ; a high state 
of culture, and the habitual re-union of the most cultivated through 
genial and intellectual sympathies. But as social distinctions, in 
part factitious, prevail even in republican countries, this fu^jion 
into unity under high influences, is nowhere more than partially 
practicable. Gross and accidental advantages are still prized,-— 



SOCIETY. 81 

and that even by the intellectual, — above those that are inherent 
and refined. They who possess, watch them jealously. Instead 
of the salve, printed in large Icttci-s on Goethe's threshold, they 
would like to inscribe on theirs, " No admittance to strangers ;" 
that is, to those who hav'n't the same interests to guard. Against 
a partition of their power, they in various ways protest ; and now 
with the more emphasis, from a perception of the growing disre- 
gard of them. The land of Promise, where men and things shall 
be valued at their just worth, is much too remote for its remote- 
ness to be measured ; and we can only discover that we are less 
far from it, by a comparison of where we are with where we have 
been, — a comparison which, if made broadly and with a free 
spirit, will, in other domains of life as well as in this, induce 
hopefulness and trust. 

The second requisite, therefore, is found, from general causes, 
as little in Florence as elsewhere, and less than in the great capi- 
tals, -As to the first, Flor-ence has its creditable circle of men 
of Letters, Science, and Art. But while with those to whom rank 
and affluence give opportunities of education, they are but slen- 
derly connected, they are at the same time sundered from the 
masses ; they and the multitude cannot duly co-operate ; their 
light scarcely pierces the blighting shade cast upon the people by 
the tangled brambles of priestly abuse. A community under 
Roman ecclesiastical dominion, cannot attain to the highest state 
of culture possible in its age. By the growth and diffusion of 
knowledge, through the long peace and the intercommunication 
among nations, the bonds of episcopal tyranny have been some* 
what loosened in the Italian states. The body of the scientific 
and literary men have of course always lived in secret protest 
against this curse. But though they hate the tyrants and con- 
temn their impostures, they cannot escape from them. The mind 
is stinted and thwarted in its wants and aspirations. Tliought 
itself, free in the dungeon and on the rack, languishes where i< 
5* 



98 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

has not free utterance by speech and pen. That under this long 
double load of political and religious despotism, the Italians have 
still kept alive the sacred fire of knowledge ; have, through the 
thickest atmosphere, shot up into the sky, high enough for all 
Europe to see them, lights, poetic and scientific, proves, what deep 
sources of life, what elasticity and tenachy of nature there are in 
this oppressed people. Let those who for their abject state would 
despise them, think of this, and they will perhaps wonder that the 
Italians are not even more prostrate. 

The political despotism to which Tuscany was subjected by the 
first Medici, has been, since the extinction of that bad breed, a 
paternal one, under a branch of the house of Austria. Still, 
though mild and forbearing in the hands of the present worthy 
Grand Duke, and his father, so justly beloved by the Tuscans, it 
is a despotism (and nothing else would be permitted by the other 
states of Italy), and as such, crushes in the people some of tlie 
richest elements of life. Florence, therefore, cannot be in advance 
of its sisters in social organization and spii'it. Like other cities 
of its compass, it has nothing better than what, by a combination 
of the figures Amplification and Hyperbole, is termed " Good 
Society," composed here, as elsewhere, by those who have inherit- 
ed, or by wealth acquired, social rank ; embracing in Florence, 
besides the native noblesse and diplomatic corps, a large body of 
" nobility and gentry," — in the phrase of the English newspa. 
pers, — from other lands, who for a season take up their abode in 
the Tuscan capital. The occupation of this circle is idleness. 
Start not at the apparent solecism. It is but apparent ; for, to 
people who are not urged to exertion either by body or spirit ; 
«vhose infinite natures are in a measure circumscribed within the 
Animal bounds of the ephemera of the fields, their whole life 
/evolving in a quick diurnal orbit ; whose minds, left void by 
/5xemption, — not, however, entirely wilful, — from active duties 
and labors, are obliged, in order to oppose the pressure of time, 



THE GALLERIES. 83 



literally to make something out of nothing ; to people thus dislo- 
cated from the busy order of nature, it becomes an occupation, 
requiring method and forethought, to resist the weight of their 
waking hours, and maintain the daily fight with ennui. Their 
insipidity of life is seasoned by a piquant ingredient, supplied by 
clouds of little cupids, — imps that, with their inborn perverseness, 
choose here to hover over nuptial couches, assaulting the hymeneal 
citadel with such vigor, that all, says dame Gossip, have not 
strength to withstand them. Their chief public performances 
are, to support the opera, and adorn the Cascine with their 
equipages and toilettes. 

The Galleries of Painting and Sculpture come next in the scale, 
on which I have subdivided the hours of a stranger's Florentine 
sojourn. They might, without inaccuracy, take their place under 
the head of company. Genuine works of Art speak to you more 
clearly than most tongue-wagging speakers. In them is a soul 
which puts itself at once in connexion with yours. When at 
Antwerp, I never walked on the ramparts without feeling what 
companionship there was in the spire of the Cathedral : the mind 
felt its presence constantly and cordially. A shot-tower, you 
will say, of equal height, that met the eyes whenever they were 
turned towards the town, would have been just as much company. 
With this difference : that the one would be the company of a 
ponderous bore, the other, that of a buoyant poet. 

Whenever your mood is that way bent, you betake yourself to 
the Grand Duke's residence, the Pitti Palace. Passing through 
its wide portal, you ascend, under the guidance of civil guards, 
by broad flights of steps, to a suite of spacious apartments, wlieve 
are lodged Raphael, and Titian, and Claude, and Rubens, and 
Leonardo da Vinci, and Guido. From room to room, through a 
long scries, you converse with these great spirits for hours together 
if you choose. Every day in the year, except Sundays and lioli. 
days, these refulgent rooms are thus courteously thrown oper.. 



S4 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

The servant at the door, who takes charge of your cane of 
umbrella, is not permitted even to accept anything for the service. 
A noble hospitality is this, to which strangers are so accustomed that 
they do not always duly value it. The Gallery attached to the 
old Palace over the Uffizii, where is the Tribune with its priceless 
treasures, daily invites the stranger in the same liberal way. 

Among the studios of living Artists, the most attractive natu- 
rally to an American, are those of his fellow countrymen. Nor 
do they need national partiality to make them attractive. The 
first American who gained a reputation in the severest of the 
Fine Arts was Greenough. For some years he was the only 
sculptor we had, and worthily did he lead the van in a field 
where triumphs awaited us. I happened, five or six years ago, to 
travel from Boston southward with him and Powers, and heard 
Greenough then warmly second Powers' inclineltion, and urge 
him to hasten to Italy. Powers was soon followed by Clevinger, 
who, in turn, received from him encouraging words. The three 
are now working here harmoniously together. 

Artists of merit have seldom much to show at their rooms ; for 
their works are either made to order, and sent to their destina- 
tions as fast as finished, or they are sold almost as soon as seen. 
Sculptors have an advantage over painters, inasmuch as they 
retain the plaster casts after which each work is chiselled in marble. 
As Greenough does not always finish the clay model up to the 
full design in his mind, but leaves the final touches to the chisel 
itself, he is not forward to exhibit his casts taken from the clay, 
the prototypes of the forms that have been distributed to different 
quarters of the world. He has just now in his studio, recently 
finished in marble for a Hungarian nobleman, an exquisite figure 
of a child, seated on a bank gazing at a butterfly, that has just 
lighted on the back of its upraised hand. .In the conception there 
is that union of simplicity and significance, so requisite to make 
a work of plastic Art, especially of sculpture, effective, and 



GREENOUGH. S5 



wliicli denotes the genial Artist. The attitude of the figure 
lias the pliable grace of unconscious childhood ; the limbs ate 
nicely wrought ; and the intelligence, curiosity, delight, implied 
and expressed in its gaze at the beautiful little winged wonder 
before it, impart vividly to the work the moral element ; wanting 
the which, a production, otherwise commendable, is not lifted 
up to one of the high platforms of Art. Tlie mind of the specta- 
tor is drawn into that of the beautiful child, whose inmost facul- 
ties are visibly budding in the effort to take in the phenomenon 
before it. The perfect bodily stillness of the little flexible figure, 
under the control of its mental intentness, is denoted by the 
coming forth of a lizard from the side of the bank. This is one 
of those delicate touches whereby the artist knows how to beautify 
and heighten the chief effect. 

Another work of high character, which Greenough is just 
about to finish in marble, is a head of Lucifer, of colossal size. 
The countenance has the beauty of an archangel, with the hard, 
uncertain look of an archangel fallen. Here is a noble mould 
not filled up with the expression commensurate to it. There is 
no exaggeration to impress the beholder at once with the malevo- 
lence of the original which the sculptor had in his imagination. 
The sinister nature lies concealed, as it were, in the features, 
and comes out gradually, after they have been some time contem- 
plated. The beauty of the countenance is not yet blasted by th-e 
deformity of the mind. 

Grecnough's Washington had left Italy before my arrival in 
Florence. By those best qualified to judge, it was here esteemed 
a fine work. Let me say a few words about the nudity of this 
statue, for which it jias been much censured in America. 

Washington exemplifies the might of principle. He was a 
great man without ambition, and the absence of anabition was a 
chief source of his greatness. The grandeur of his character is 
infinitely amplified by its abstract quality ; that is, by its clean- 



«6 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

ness from all personality. Patriotism, resting on integrity of soul 
and broad massive intellect, is in him uniquely embodied. The 
purity and elevation of his nature were the basis of his success. 
Hsjd his rare military and civil genius been united to the selfish- 
ness of a Cromwell, they would have lost much of their effective- 
ness upon a generation warring for the rights of man. No these, 
but the unexampled union of these with uprightness, with stain- 
less disinterestedness, made him Washington. If the Artist 
clothes him with the toga of civil authority, he represents the 
great statesman ; if with uniform and spurs, the great General. 
Representing him in either of these characters, he gives prefer- 
ence to the one over the other, and his image of Washington is 
incomplete, for he was both. But he was more than either or 
both ; he was a truly great man, in whom statesmanship and 
generalship were subordinate to supreme nobleness of mind and 
moral power. The majesty of his nature, the immortality of his 
name, as of one combining the morally sublime with commanding 
practical genius, demand the purest form of artistic representa- 
tion, — the nude. To invest the colossal marble image of so tow- 
ering, so everlasting a man, with the insignia of temporary office, 
is to fail in presenting a complete image of him. Washington, 
to be best seen, ought to be beheld, not as he came from the hand 
of the tailor, but as he came from the hand of God. Thus, the 
image of him will be at once real and ideal. 

That Greenough's fellow-countrymen, by whose order this 
statue was made, would have preferred it draped, ought to be of 
no weight, even if such a wish had accompanied the order. To 
the true Artist, the laws of Art are supreme against all wishes 
or commands. He is the servant of Art only. If, bending to 
the uninformed will of his employers, he executes commissions in 
a way thatjs counter to the requirements of Art, he sinks from 
the Artist into the artisan. Nor can he, by stooping to unculti- 
vated tastes, popularize Art; he deadens it, and so makes it I 



GREENOUGH 8t 



ineflective. But by presenting it to the general gaze in its severe 
simplicity, and thus, through grandeur and beauty of form, lifting 
the beholder up into the ideal region of Art, — by this means he 
can popularize it. He gradually awakens and creates a love 
for it, and thus he gains a wide substantial support to Art in the 
sympathy for it engendered, the which is the only true further- 
ance from without that the Artist can receive. 

A statue which is a genuine work of Art, cannot be appreci- 
ated, — nay, cannot be seen, without thought. The imagination 
must be active in the beholder, must work with the perception. 
Otlierwise, what he looks at, is to him only a superficial piece 
of handicraft. The form before him should breed in him con- 
jecture of its inward nature and capacity, and by its beauty or 
stamp of intellect and soul, lead him up into the domain of human 
possibilities. The majestic head and figure of Washington will 
reveal and confirm the greatness of his character, for the body 
is the physiognomy of the mind. That broad mould of limbs, 
that stern calmness, that dignity of brow, will carry the mind 
beyond the scenes of the revolution, and swell the heart with 
thoughts and hopes of the nobleness and destiny of man. Let 
the beholder contemplate this great statue calmly and thoughtfully; 
let him, by dint of contemplation, raise himself up to the point 
of view of the artist, and it will have on him something of this 
high effect. He will forget that Washington ever wore a coat, 
and will turn away from this noble colossal form in a mood that 
will be w^holesome to his mental state. 

This attempt to justify Greenough's work by no means implies 
a condemnation of other conceptions for a statue of Washington. 
A colossal figure, — but partially draped, — seated, the posture of 
repose and authority, — Greenough's conception, seems to me the 
most elevated and appropriate. Artists have still scope for a 
figure, entirely draped in military or civil costume, on horse- 



SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



bacic or standing. Only, this representation of Washington will 
not be so high and complete as the other. 

Powers left America with a goodly cargo of busts in plaister, 
carrying them to Italy, there to execute them in marble. With 
these he opened his studio in Florence. The first that were 
finished he sent to the public exhibition. All eyes were at once 
drawn to them. Here was something totally new. Here was 
a completeness of imitation, a fidelity to nature never before ap. 
proached, never aimed at by modern sculptors. Even the most 
delicate blood-vessels, the finest wrinkles, were traceable in the 
clear marble. Nor did the effect of the whole seem to be there- 
by marred. People knew not whether their astonishment ought 
to pass into admiration or censure. The Italian sculptors gath- 
ered themselves up. This man's Art and theirs were irreconcile- 
able. They felt, — we must crush him, or he will overmaster 
us. They crowded the next exhibition with their best busts. 
Powers too was there. In the Tuscan capital, a young American 
sculptor not meuely contended publicly with a host of artists for 
superiority ; he defied to mortal combat the Italian school in this 
department of Art as taught by Canova. It was a conflict not 
for victory solely, but for life. Where would be the triumph, 
was not long doubtful. Powers' busts grew more and more upon 
the public eye. The longer they were looked at, the stronger 
they grew. By the light they shed upon the art of sculpture, 
the deficiencies of their rivals became for the first time fully c 
apparent. Connoisseurs discovered, that they had hitherto been 
content with what was flat and lifeless. 

The principle of the academic style of bust-making, thus sud- 
denly supplanted, was, to merge the minor details into the larger 
traits, and to attempt to elevate, — to idealize was the phrase, — 
the subject, by preserving only the general form and outline. 
The result was, that busts were mostly faithless and insipid, their 
insipidity being generally in proportion to their unfaithfulness. 



POWERS. 89 

Powers made evident, tliat tlie finest traits contribute to the indi- 
Aiduality of character ; that the slightest divergence from the 
particularities of form vitiates the expression ; that the only good 
basis of a bust is the closest adherence to the material form, as 
well in detail as in gross. So much for the groundwork. Hand 
in hand witlj this physical fidelity, must go the vital fidelity ; 
that is, a power to seize life as it plays on that beautiful marvel, 
the human countenance. From the depth of the soul comes 
the expression on the countenance ; only from the depth of a soul 
flooded with sensibility, can come the power to reproduce this 
tremulous mystical surface. Nay, this susceptibility is needed 
for the achievement of the physical fidelity itself. Without it, 
the lines harden and stiffen under the most acute and precise per- 
ception. Finally, to this union of accuracy in copying the very 
mould and shape of the features, with sympathy for the various 
life that animates them, must be added the sense of the Beauti- 
ful. This is the decisive gift, that turns the other rich faculties 
into endowments for Art. 

The Beautiful underlies the roughest as well as the fairest 
products of Nature. It is the seed of creation. In all living 
things this seed bears fruit. In the embryo of each there is a 
potentiality, so to speak, to be beautiful, not entirely fulfilled in 
the most perfect developments, not entirely defaced in the most 
deformed. This spirit of beauty, resplendent at times to the 
dullest senses, lambent or latent in all living forms, pervading 
creation, this spirit is the vitality of the Artist. In it he has his 
being. His inward life is a perpetual yearning for the Beauti- 
ful ; his outward, an endeavor to grasp and embody its forms ; 
his happiness is, to minister in its service ; his ecstasy, the 
glimpses he is vouchsafed of its divine splendors. 

As sympathy with the motions of life is needed, to copy physi- 
cal forms, so this loving intimacy with the Beautiful is needed, 
to refine and to guide this sympathy. In short, a lively sense of 



90 SCENES AND THOUGHIS IN EUROPE. 

the Beautiful is requisite, not merely to produce out of the mind 
an ideal head, — an act so seldom really performed, — but likewise, 
to reproduce a living head. He who would copy a countenance 
must know it. To know a human face, — what a multiplex pro- 
found knowledge ! Not enough is it, to have a shrewd discrimi- 
nating eye for forms ; not enough, to peer beneath -the surface 
through the shifting expression. To get knowledge of any in- 
dividual thing, we must start with a general standard. You 
cannot judge of a man's height, unless you bring with you a 
generic idea of measures and a notion of manly stature. So of 
a man's mind, — though the process be so much deeper, — and so 
too of his head and face. A preconceived idea of the human 
countenance in its fullest capability of form and expression, an 
aboriginal standard must illuminate the vision that aims to take 
in a complete image of any face. What mind can compass this 
deep-lying idea, except one made piercing, transparent, " vision- 
ary," by an intense inborn love of beauty ? Each face is, so to 
speak, an offshoot from a type ; each is a partial incarnation of 
an ideal, all ideals springing of course out of the domain of 
Beauty. It is only by being able to go back to this ideal, which 
stands again closely linked with the one, final, primeval, perfect 
idea of the human countenance ; it is only by thus mastering, I 
may say, the original possibility of each face, that you can fully 
discern its characteristics, its essential difference from other 
faces — learn why it is as it is and not otherwise. A vivid, elec- 
tric sensibility to the Beautiful, in active co-operation with the 
other powers, is the penetrating, magnifying telescope wherewith 
alone the vision is carried into the primitive fields of being. 
Thus is every face, even the most mis-shapen, brought within 
the circle of tlie Beautiful ; cannot be fully seen, cannot be 
thoroughly known, until it is brought within that circle. Under 
the homeliest, commonest countenance, there is an inner lamp 
of unrevealed beauty, casting up at times into the features 



POWERS. 91 



gleams of its light. These translucent moments, — its truest and 
best states, — the Artist must seize, in order to effect a full like- 
ness. This is the genuine idealisation. And these states he 
cannot even perceive without the subtle expansive sense of the 
Beautiful. 

The unexampled excellence of Powers's busts was soon ac- 
knowledged. In this department of Art, the Italian sculptors 
yielded to him the first place. Thorwaldsen, on coming, 
astonished, out of Powers's studio, declared that he could not 
make such busts, that there were none superior to them, ancient 
or modern. The cry now rose, that Powers could make busts, 
he could copy nature, but nothing more. This false inference 
sprang not wholly from jealousy, but in part from the false school 
of Art long dominant in Italy, where students were taught to 
study the antique more than Nature ; whereby the perceptions 
and mental powers became so weakened and sophisticated, that it 
was no longer felt, what a task, how high and intense it is, truly 
and vitally to copy Nature. Conceive what is a human counte- 
nance, — the most wonderful work of God that our eyes can come 
close to ! What an harmonious blending of diverse forms, what 
a compact constellation of beaming features, what concentrated 
life, what power, what variety, what unfathomable significance, 
in that jewelled crown of the body, that transparent earthly tem- 
ple of the soul ! Adequately to represent this masterpiece of 
divine workmanship, what a deed ! He who can reproduce it in 
its full life and truth and character, must be a great Artist ; that 
is, a re-maker, in a degree, of God's works, — a poet, a creator. 
To copy Nature, forsooth ; the words are very simple : the act is 
one of deep insight, of noble labor, anything but a superficial work. 
He who performs it well, co- works with Nature, his mind exalted 
the while by poetic fervor. Hence none but Artists of the first 
class have left good portraits. 

The faculty for the Ideal is then indispensable to the execution 



92 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

of a good bust. It is the key-stone which binds the other endow- 
ments into the beautiful arch, whereby works of human hands 
grow stronger with time. The basis in plastic Art is always^ 
unerring accuracy in rendering physical, forms. Sense of beauty 
and correctness of drawing, are thus the two extremes of the 
Artist's means. Between them, — and needed to link them in 
effective union, — is fullness of sensibility, to sympathize with and 
seize the expression of, all the passions and emotions of the soul. 
These, with imitative talent and manual dexterity, embrace the 
powers needed as well in the portrait-artist as in him whose sub- 
jects are inventions. I speak of the plastic Artist without distin- 
guishing the sculptor from the painter. The difference between 
them is in the inequality of their endowment with the faculties of 
form and color ; the sculptor requiring a severer eye for form 
than the painter, and dispensing with an eye for color. The mo- 
ment the Artist begins, by the working of his imagination, to 
compose a subject, then comes into active play the Reason ; the 
faculty whereby, in every department of work, prosaic as well as 
poetic, the mind selects and adapts, — the faculty whereby the 
means within reach are picked and arranged for the completest 
attainment of the end in view. This, it seems to me, is the only 
power needed in larger measure for the artist who composes 
groups, than for him who would make the best portrait. 

It is the completeness of his endowment with all the requisites 
for sculpture, that stamps Powers with greatness. In the circle 
of his genial gifts there is no chasm. They are compactly knit 
together. To his ends they all co-operate smoothly, through that 
marvellous instrument, the human hand. Such is the precision 
of his eye, that he who exacts of himself the most faithful con- 
formity to Nature's measurements, never needs the help of com- 
passes to attain it. Such his sense of the Beautiful, that he does 
justice to the most beautiful countenance, and has given a new 
grace even to draperies. Such his sympathy with life, that with 



POWERS 98 



equal ease he seizes the expressions of all kinds of physio"-nomies, 
so that you cannot say tiiat he does men better than women, old 
better than young ; and hereby, in conjunction with his mimetic 
talent, he imparls sucli an elastic look to his marble flesh, that the 
spiritual essence, wliercwith all Nature's living forms are vivified, 
may be imagined to stream from his finger-ends while he works. 
Such his manual dexterity, that in twenty hours he can turn out 
one of these great busts in its unparalleled completeness. And 
as if nothing should be wanting which could serve in his calling, 
Nature has bestowed on him a talent, I may call it a genius, for 
Mechanics, which, — had it not been overborne by superior facul- 
ties, destined to lift him up into the highest field of human labor, 
— would have gained for him a name and living as an inventive 
and practical machinist. It is now the pliant servant of nobler 
qualities ; helping him to modelling tools, to facilities and secu- 
rities for the elevation or removal of clay models, and to other 
contrivances in the economy of his studio. 

Powers had not been long established in Florence, ere he set 
about his first statue, the Eve. This work was planned before he 
came to Italy. Almost precisely as it stands now embodied in 
attitude and character, he described to me in America the image 
he had there evolved in his mind. The figure is above the ave- 
rage height, undraped and nearly erect. The only support it has 
from without is a broken stem by the side of the left leg, repre- 
senting the tree whence the fruit has just been plucked. On this 
leg is thrown the weight, the other being slightly bent at the knee. 
The head, inclined to the right, follows the eyes, which are fixed 
upon the apple, held in the right hand, raised to the level of the 
breast. The left arm hangs by the side, the left hand holding a 
twig of tlie tree with two apples and leaves attached. The hair, 
parted in the middle and thrown behind the ears, falls in a com- 
pact mass on the back. Round the outer edge of the circular 
plot of grass and flowers, which is the sole basis of tlie statue 



94 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

coils the serpent, who rears his head within a few inches of the 
right leg, looking up towards the face of Eve. 

Here, without a fold of drapery to weaken or conceal any of 
Nature's lineaments, is the mature figure of a woman ; nearly 
erect, the posture most favorable to beauty and perfectness of 
proportion ; the body unconsciously arrested in this upright atti- 
tude by the mind's intentness ; while the deed over which she 
broods, without disturbing the complete bodily repose, gives occu- 
pation to each hand and arm, throwing thereby more life as well 
into them as into the whole figure. Thus intent and tranquil, 
she stands within the coil of the serpent, whose smooth but fiery 
folds and crest depict animal fierceness, and cpntrast deeply with 
the female humanity above him. • Both for moral and physical 
effect the best moment is chosen, the awful pause between obedi- 
ence and disobedience. Her fresh feet pressing the flowers of 
Eden, Eve, still in her innocent nakedness, is fascinated against 
her purer will, — the mother and type of mankind, within whose 
bosom is ever waging the conflict between good and evil. What 
fullness combined with what simplicity in this conception, wliich 
bespeaks the richest resources of imagination under guidance 
of the severest purity of taste. 

How shall I describe the execution ? Knowledge and skill far 
exceeding mine, would fall short of transmitting through words 
an image of this marvel of beauty. The most that the pen can 
do before a master-piece of the pencil or chisel, is, to give a vivid 
' impression of the effect it makes on the beholder, and a faint one 
of the master-piece itself. 

In executing his Eve, Powers has had twenty or thirty models. 
From one he took an ankle, from another a shoulder, a frao-ment 
from the flank of a third ; and so on throughout, extracting his 
own preconceived image piece by piece out of Nature. From 
such a labor even a good Artist would recoil, baffled, disheartened. 
To none but a supreme genius does Nature accord such familiari- 



POWERS. 03 

ty. Witli instantaneous discernment his eyes detect where she 
comes short, and where her subtle spirit of beauty has wroui^ht 
itself out. He seizes each scrap of perfection, rejects all the 
rest, and so, out of a score of models, re-compounds one of Na- 
ture's own originals. Such is the movement on the surface, that 
the statue has the look of having been wrought from within out- 
ward. AVith such truth is rendered the flexible expression im- 
parted to flesh and blood by the vital workings, that the great 
internal processes might be inferred from such an exterior. The 
organs of animal life are at play within that elastic trunk ; there 
is smooth pulsation beneath that healthy rotundity of limb. Tiie 
capacity and wonderful nature of the human form fill the mind 
as you gaze at this union of force, lightness, and buoyant grace. 
In spite of that smooth feminine roundness of mould, such visible 
power and springiness are in the frame and limbs, that, though 
now so still, the figure makes you think of Eve as bounding over 
shrub and rivulet, a dazzling picture of joyous beauty. Then, 
again, as the eye passes up to the countenance, with its dim ex- 
pression of mingled thought and emotion, the current of feeling 
changes, and the human mind, with its wondrous endowments, 
absorbs for awhile the beholder. But mark ; it is by the power 
of Beauty that he is wrought upon. Through this, humanity 
stands ennobled before him. By this, the human form and capa- 
bility are dilated. This awakens delight, breeds suggestion. By 
means of this, the etFect of the statue is full, various ; its signifi- 
cance infinite. Take away its beauty, and all is a blank. The" 
statue ceases to be. 

The head of Eve is a new head. As it is beautiful, it is Gre- 
cian ; but it recalls no Greek mcdel. Nor Venus, nor Juno, nor 
Niobe, can claim that she helped to nurse it. Not back to any 
known form does it carry the mind ; it summons it to compass a 
new one. It is a fresh emanation from the deep bosom of Art. 
In form and expression, in feature and contour, in the blending 0/ 



SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



beauties into a radiant unity, it is a new Ideal, as pure as it is 
inexhaustible. Lightly it springs into its place from the bosom 
and shoulders. These flow into the, trunk and arms, and these 
again into the lower limbs, with such graceful strength, that the 
wholeness of the work is the idea that establishes itself among 
the first upon the mind of the beholder. To the hollow of a foot, 
to the nail of a finger, every part is finished with the most labo- 
rious minuteness. Yet, nowhei'e hardness. From her scattered 
stores of beauty Nature supplied the details ; with an infallible 
eye, the Artist culled them, and transferred them with a hand 
whose firm precision was ever guided by grace. The Natural 
and the Ideal here blend into one act, their essences interfused for 
the unfolding of a full blossom of beauty. 

What terms are left to speak of the Venus of the Tribune ? 
None stronger are needed than such as are used in speaking of 
the Eve of Powers. Let who will cry presumption at him who 
places them side by side. Art always in the end vindicates her 
favorite children. The Eve need fear comparison with none of 
them. 

The clay model of Eve being finished, Powers's mind is busy 
with another work, also a single female figure, which he will set 
about immediately. It will represent a modern Greek captive, 
exposed in the slave-market of Constantinople. Like Eve, the 
figure will be without drapery ; like her, it will not fail to be a 
model of female beauty, though in frame, size, age, character 
*' and expression, altogether different. 

Clevinger has been here but a short time, and is zealously at 
work upon the crowd of busts which he brought with him from 
America, and several that he has modelled in Florence. Among 
tlie former is a fine one of Allston ; among the latter, one of 
Louis Bonaparte, ex-king of Holland, so admirably executed, that 
it awakens regret that there is none of equal fidelity extant of the 
Eiiiperor Napoleon. 



^ BPxOWN AND KELLOGG. 97 

Two American painters are established here, who give promise 
of reaching a high excellence ; Brown and Kellogg. Brown 
devotes himself chiefly to landscapes, for which he displays rare 
aptitude. He has just finished a view of Florence, admirable in 
all respects, but chiefly for the truth with which it gives the rich 
hue of the Italian evening sky. An evidence of his gifts for this 
department, is the style in which he copies Claude Lorraine, repro- 
ducing the character, tone, and magical coloring of that great 
Artist with a fidelity that might impose upon a practised connois- 
seur. 

Kellogg, by the progress he has made since he came to Flo- 
rence, has shown that his ability is equal to his zeal. With an 
empty purse, and a spirit devoted to Art, he landed in Italy 
eighteen months since. In that period his genius, through indus- 
try and judicious study, has developed itself in a way that gives 
assurance that he will reach a high rank. 

I will conclude this Florentine chapter with a few chips of 
" fragments" jsickcd up in that division, which the despotism of 
nerves over the intellectual as well as the physical man, obliged 
me to put last in my scale of occupations and pastimes. 

Among my disappointments are Petrarca and Macchiavelli. I 
am disappointed in Petrarca that his sonnets are written more out 
of the head than the heart. They sparkle with poetic fancy, but 
do not throb with sensibility. In his pleasant little autobiographical 
memoir, Petrarca ascribes to his love for Laura all that he was 
and did. For twenty years, it was the breath of mental life to 
}n"m. Happily he was not of an energetic, glowing nature (his 
portrait might be taken for that of a woman), or his love would 
have consumed instead of animating him, or, worse still, would 
have had perhaps a quick close in success. I am sorry to con. 
elude, tliat he was very far from being the most miserable man 
of his generation. 

Slacchiavclli is not the searching thinker that one unacquainted 
6 



'98 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

with his works might infer him to be, from his so long sustained 
reputation. He is a vigorous, accomplished writer ; a clear, 
nervous narrator. Subtlety in the discussion of points of political 
expediency, seems to me his highest power. Princes, nobles, and 
populace, are to him the ultimate elements of humanity. The 
deep relations of man to man, and of man to God, do not com© 
vividly within his view. He has no thorough insight into the 
moral resources of man ; he does not transpierce the surface of 
human selfishness. There is in him no ray of divine illumina- 
tion, whereby he might discern the absolute. But it is unjust to 
reproach him with a want which he has in common with most of 
his brother historians. 

A just reproach against him is, that in his History he flattered 
the Medici, and has handed down a misrepresentation of them. 
From his pages no one would learn that the first Medici were 
usurpers, successful demagogues. Sismondi and Alfieri counter, 
act the false report of Macchiavelli, and disclose the long-con- 
cealed ugliness of these vulgar tyrants. Describing the state of 
Italy at the death of Lorenzo, and the loss of independence with that 
of liberty, Sismondi says : — " Florence, mastered for three gene- 
rations by the family of Medici, depraved by their licentiousness, 
made venal by their wealth, had learnt from them to* fear and to 
obey." The hollowness and worthlessness of Pope Leo X., his 
prodigaUty, dissoluteness, and incapacity, are exposed by Sismon- 
di, who describes as follows Pope Clement VII., another Medici, 
and the one to whom Macchiavelli, in a fulsome address, dedicated 
his History of Florence : — " Under the pontificate of Leo X., his 
cousin, when times were prosperous, he acquired the reputation 
of ability ; but when he came to confront distress not brought 
about by himself, then his unskilfulness in matters of finance and 
government, his sordid avarice, his pusillanimity and imprudence, 
his sudden resolutions and prolonged indecision, rendered him no 
less odious than ridiculous." Sismondi relates^ that Lorenzo de ' 



f 



THE MEDICI. 99 



Medici, being "bn his death-bed, sent for Savonarola, the celebrated 
preacher of ecclesiastical reform and devotee to liberty, who had 
hitherto refused to see Lorenzo, or to show him any respect. 
Nevertheless, Lorenzo, moved by the fame of Savonarola's elo- 
quence and sanctity, desired to receive absolution from him. Sa- 
vonarola did not refuse to him consolations and exhortations, but 
declared, that absolve him from his sins he could not, unless he 
gave proof of penitence by repairing as much as in him lay his 
errors. That he must pardon his enemies, make restitution of his 
ill-gotten wealth, and restore to his country its liberty. Lorenzo, 
not consenting, was denied absolution, and died, says Sismondi, in 
the possession of despotic power, " mori in possesso della tiran- 
nide." 

Lorenzo dei Medici, — whose portrait in the gallery here is that 
of an intellectual sensualist, whose largesses, pecuniary liberali- 
ties and sensual sumptuosities won for him the equivocal title of 
*< il magnifico," — Lorenzo and Leo X. have the fame of being 
the munificent patrons of Poets and Artists. All the fame they 
deserve on this score is, that they had taste to appreciate the men 
of merit who lived in their day. These men were the last off- 
spring of the antecedent energetic times of liberty. By the re- 
ceding wavQS of freedom they had been left upon the barren shore 
of despotism. What had Leo X. to do with the forming of the emi- 
nent writers and artists who adorned the age to which the servil- 
ity of men has given his name ? Patrons of Poets and Artists ! A 
curse upon patronage. Let it be bestowed upon upholsterers and 
barbers. Poets and Artists don't want patronage : what they do 
want is sympathy. Patronage is narrow, is blind ; its eyes are 
egotistical ; it is prone to uphold mere talent, mediocrity. Sym- 
pathy is expansive, keen-sighted, and discerns and confirms 
genius. 

Leonardo da Vinci, Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, men too great 
to be patronised, were the children of republican Florence. By 



100 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Democracy, turbulent Democracy, were they nursed into heroic 
stature. When the basis of her government was the sovereignty 
of the people, when nobles had to put away their nobility to be 
admitted to a share in the administration of affairs, then it was 
that the bosom of Florence was fertile and wide enough to give 
birth to the men who are the chief glory of modern Italy. Com- 
pare Florence as she then was, vigorous, manly, erect, produc- 
tive, with her abject, effeminate, barren state under the Medici. 
Or contrast the genius generated by democratic Florence with 
that of aristocratic Venice. 

Alfieri tells, that he betook himself to writing, because in his 
miserable age and land he had no scope for action ; and that he 
remained single because he would not be a breeder of slaves. 
He utters the despaii", to passionate tears, which he felt, when 
young and deeply moved by the traits of greatness related by 
Plutarch, to find himself in times and in a country where no 
great thing could be either said or acted. The feelings here im- 
plied are the breath of his dramas. In them, a clear nervous 
understanding gives rapid utterance to wrath, pride, and impetu- 
ous passion. Though great within his sphere, his nature was not 
ample and complex enough for the highest tragedy. In his com- 
position there was too much of passion and too little ot high emo- 
tion. Fully to feel and perceive the awful and pathetic in human 
conjunctions, a deep fund of sentiment is needed. A condensed 
tale of passion is not of itself a Tragedy. To dark feelings, re- 
solves, deeds, emotion must give breadth, and depth, and relief. 
Passion furnishes crimes, but cannot furnish the kind and degree 
of horror which should accompany their commission. To give 
Tragedy the grand compass and sublime significance whereof it is 
susceptible, it is not enough, that through the storm is visible the 
majestic figure of Justice : the blackest clouds must be fringed 
with the light of Hope and Pity ; while through them Religion 
gives vistas into the Infinite, Beauty keeping watch to repel what 



ALFIERI. 101 

is partial or deformed. In Alfieri, these great gifts arc not com- 
mensurate with his power of intellect and passion. Hence, like 
the French classic dramatists, he is obliged to bind his personages 
into too narrow a circle. They have not enough of moral liberty. 
They are not swayed merely, they are tyrannized over by the 
passions. Hence, they want elasticity and color. They are like 
hard engravings. 

Alfieri does not cut deep into character : he gives a clean out- 
line, but broad flat surfaces without finish of parts. It is this 
throbbing movement in details, which imparts buoyancy and 
expression. Wanting it, Alfieri is mostly hard. The effect 
of the whole is imposing, but does not invite or bear close 
inspection. Hence, though he is clear and rapid, and tells a 
stoj-y vividly, his tragedies are not life-like. In Alfieri there 
is vigorous rhetoric, sustained vivacity, fervent passion ; but 
no depth of sentiment, no play of a fleet rejoicing imagination, 
nothing " visionary," and none of the " golden cadence of poe- 
try." But his heart was full of nobleness. He was a proud, 
lofty man, severe, but truth-loving and scornful of littleness. He 
delighted to depict characters that are manly and energetic. He 
makes them wrathful against tyranny, hardy, urgent for freedom, 
reclaiming with burning words the lost rights of man, protesting 
fiercely against oppression. There is in Alfieri a stern virility 
that contrasts strongly with Italian effeminateness. An indignant 
frown sits ever on his brow, as if rebuking the passivity of his 
countrymen. His verse is swollen with wrath. It has the clan- 
gor of a trumpet that would shame the soft piping of flutes. 

Above Alfieri, far above him and all other Italian greatness, 
solitary in the earliness of his rise, ere the modern mind had 
worked itself open, and still as solitary amidst the after splendors 
of Italy's fruitfulness, is Dante. Take away any other great 
Poet or Artist, and in the broad shining rampart wherewith genius 
has beautified and fortified Italy, there would be a mournful 



102 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

chasm. Take away Dante, and you level the Citadel itself, under 
whose shelter the whole compact cincture has grown into strength 
and beauty. 

Three hundred years before Shakspeare, in 1265, was Dante 
born. His social position secured to him the best schooling. He 
was taught and eagerly learnt all the crude knowledge of his 
day. Through the precocious susceptibility of the poetic tempe- 
rament, he was in love at the age of nine years. This love, as 
will be with such natures, was wrought into his heart, expanding 
his young being with beautiful visions and hopes, and making 
tuneful the poetry within him. It endured with his life, and spi- 
ritualized his latest inspirations. Soberly he afterwards married 
another, and was the father of a numerous family. In the stir- 
ring days of Guelfs and Ghibellines, he became a public leader, 
made a campaign, was for a while one of the chief magistrates of 
Florence, her ambassador abroad more than once, and at the age 
of thirty-six closed his public career in the common Florentine 
way at that period, namely, by exile. Refusing to be recalled on 
condition of unmanly concessions, he never again saw his home. 
For twenty years he was an impoverished, wandering exile, and 
in his fifty-sixth year breathed his last at Ravenna. 

But Dante's life is his poem. Therein is the spirit of the mighty 
man incarnated. The life after earthly death is his theme. What 
a mould for the thoughts and sympathies of a poet, and what a 
poet, to fill all the chambers of such a moKld ! Man's whole na- 
ture claims interpretation ; his powers, wants, vices, aspirations, 
basenesses, grandeurs. The imagination of semi-Christian Italy 
had strained itself to bring before the sensuous mind of the South 
an image of the future home of the soul. The supermundane 
thoughts, fears, hopes of his time, Dante condensed into one vast 
picture — a picture cut as upon adamant with diamond To en- 
rich Hell, and Purgatory, and Paradise, he coined his own soul. 
His very body became transfigured, purged of its flesh, by the 



DANTE 103 

intensity of fiery thought. Gaunt, pale, stern, rapt, his " vi- 
sionary" eyes glaring under his deep furrowed brow, as he walked 
the streets of Verona, he heard people whisper, " That is he who 
has been down into Hell." Down into the depths of his fervent 
nature he had been, and kept himself lean by brooding over his 
passions, emotions, hopes, and transmuting the essence of them 
into everlasting song. 

Conceive the statuesque grand imagination of Michael Angelo 
united to the vivid homely particularity of Defoe, making pic- 
tures out of materials drawn from a heart whose rapturous sym- 
pathies ranged with Orphean power through the whole gamut of 
human feeling, from the blackest hate up to the brightest love, 
and you will understand what is meant by the term Dantesque. 
In the epitaph for himself, written by Dante and inscribed on his 
tomb at Ravenna, he says : — " I have sung, while traversing 
them, the abode of God, Phlegethon and the foul pits." Traversing 
must be taken literally. Dante almost believed that he had tra- 
versed them, and so does his reader too, such is the control the 
Poet gains over the i*eader through his burning intensity and gra- 
phic picturesqueness. Like the mai-k of the fierce jagged light- 
ning upon the black night-cloud are some of his touches, as 
awful, as fearfully distinct, but not as momentary. 

In the face of the contrary judgment of such critics as Shelley 
and Carlyle, I concur in the common opinion, which gives pre- 
ference to the Inferno over the Purgatorio and Paradiso. Dante's 
rich nature included the highest and lowest in humanity. With 
the pure, the calm, the tender, the ethereal, his sympathy was as 
lively as with the turbulent, the passionate, the gross. But the 
hot contentions of the time, ahd especially their effect upon him- 
self, — through them an outcast and proud mendicant, — forced the 
latter upon his heart as its unavoidable familiars. All about and 
within him were plots, ambitions, wraths, chagrins, jealousies, 
miseries. The times and his own distresses darkened his mood 



104 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

to the lurid hue of Hell. Moreover, the happiness of Heaven, 
the rewards of the spirit, its empyreal joys, can be but faintly 
pictured by visual corporeal images, the only ones the earthly 
poet possesses. The thwarted imagination loses itself in a vague, 
dazzling, golden mist. On the contrary, the trials and agonies 
of the spirit in Purgatory and Hell, are by such images suitably, 
forcibly, definitely set forth. The sufferings of the wicked while 
in the flesh are thereby typified. And this suggests to me, that 
one bent, as many are, upon detecting Allegory in Dante, might 
regard the whole poem as one grand Allegory, wherein, under 
the guise of a picture of the future world, the poet has represented 
the effect of the feelings in this ; the pangs, for example, of the 
murderer and glutton in Hell, being but a portraiture, poetically 
colored, of the actual torments on earth of those who commit 
murder and gluttony. Finally, in this there is evidence, — and 
is it not conclusive ? — of the superiority of the Book of Hell, that 
in that Book occur the two most celebrated passages in the poem, 
— passages, in which with unsurpassed felicity of diction and 
versification, the pathetic and terrible are rounded by the spirit 
of Poetry into pictures, where simplicity, expression, beauty, com- 
bine to produce effects unrivalled in this kind in the pages of Lite- 
rature. I refer of course to the stories of Francesca and Ugolino. 
Dante's work is untranslateable. Not merely because the 
style, form, and rhythm of every gi-eat Poem, being the incarna- 
tion of inspired thought, you cannot but lacerate the thought in 
disembodying it ; but because, moreover, much of the elements 
of its body, the words namely in which the spirit made itself 
visible, have passed away. To get a faithful English transcript 
of the great Florentine, we should need a diction of the fourteenth 
century, moulded by a more fiery and potent genius than Chaucer. 
Not the thoughts solely, as in every true poem, are so often virjjin 
thoughts ; the words, too, many of them, are virgin words. Tlieir 
freshness and unworn vigor are there alone in Dante's Italian. 



DANTE. 105 

Of the modern intellectual movement, Dante was the majestic 
Herald. In his poem, are the mysterious shadows, the glow, the 
fragrance, tlie young life-promising splendors of the dawn. The 
broad day has its strength and its blessings ; but it can give only 
a faint image of the glories of its birth. 

The bitter woes of Dante, hard and bitter to the shortening of 
his life, cannot but give a pang to the reader whom his genius has 
exalted and delighted. He was a life-long sufferer. • Early dis- 
appointed in love ; not blest, it would seem, in his marriage ; 
Ibiled as a statesman ; misjudged and relentlessly proscribed by 
the Florentines, upon whom from the pits of Hell his wrath wreaked 
itself in a damning line, calling them, " Gente avara, invida, e 
superba ;" a komeless wanderer ; a dependant at courts where, 
though honored, he could not be valued ; obliged to consort thei'e 
with buffoons and parasites, he whose great heart was full of 
honor, and nobleness, and tenderness ; and at last, all his political 
plans and hopes baffled, closing his mournful days far, far away 
from home and kin, wasted, sorrow-stricken, broken-hearted. 
Most sharp, most cruel were his woes. Yet to them perhaps we 
owe his poem. Had he not been discomfited and exiled, who 
can say that the mood or the leisure would have been found for 
such poetry ? His vicissitudes and woes were the soil to feed and 
ripen his conceptions. They steeped him in dark experiences, 
intensified his passions, enriching the imagination that was tasked 
to people Hell and Purgatory ; while from his own pains he turned 
with keener joy and lightened pen to the beatitudes of Heaven. 
But for his sorrows, in his soul would not have been kindled so 
fierce a fire. Out of the seething gloom of his sublime heart shot 
forth forked lightnings which still glow, a perennial illumination, 
— to the eyes of men, a beauty, a marvel, a terror. Poor indeed 
he was in purse ; but what wealth had he not in his bosjm ! True, 
he was a father parted from his children, a proud warm man, 
eating the bread of cold strangers j but had he not his genius, and 
6* 



106 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



its bounding offspring for company, and would not a day of such 
heavenly labor as his outweigh a month, aye, a year of crushed 
pride ? What though by the world he was misused, received 
from it little, his own even wrested from him ; was he not the 
giver, the conscious giver, to the world of riches fineless ? Not 
six men, since men were, have been blest with such a power of 
giving. 

Pisa, February, 1843. 

Here is a wide chasm of time. A goodly space of ground, too, 
has been gone over. Without much stretching, a volume might 
be put in between this date and the last. That trouble, however, 
shall be spared the writer and the reader. Let us see whether in 
a few pages we cannot whisk ourselves through Switzerland into 
Germany, and back to Italy. 

Starting northward from Florence, in the afternoon of June 7th, 
1842, in less than an hour we were among the Appenines, over 
whose barren, billowy surface we rolled on a good road to within 
a few miles of Bologna, where we arrived the next day at three. 

The Italian intellect is quick at expedients. With freedom the 
Italians would be eminently practical. Free people are always 
practical ; hence, the superiority of the English and Americans 
in the useful and commodious. From necessity and self-defence, 
the acute Italians are adepts in the art of deception. Hypocrisy 
they are taught by their masters, temporal and spiritual ; a sub- 
stitution of tlie semblance for the substance being the foundation 
of civil and religious rule in Italy. 

The fictions of the Catholic Church are mostly unsuitable to 
the Arts. Martyrs and emaciated anchorites cannot be subjected 
to the laws of beauty. The Greek divinities were incarnations 
of powers, qualities, truths, which, though not the deepest, were 
shaped by beauty. The Romish saints, with their miracles and 
macerations, want capability of beauty together with dignity and 



LEONARDO DA VINCI 107 

respectability, and are thence doubly unfit for the handling of 
Art. The highest genius cannot make them thoroughly effective. 
In the gallery of Bologna one is often repelled even from the best 
execution by the otlensiveness of the subject. The geniality of 
Art is shown as much in the selection of subjects as in the treat- 
ment. One tires of heavy virgins that would be thought to float, 
and old men on their knees to them, trying to look extasies ; and 
more still, of the distortions of mental and bodily agony. 

Leaving Bologna at noon, by Modena and Reggie, we arrived 
at Parma after dusk, through a country, level, fertile and well 
tilled. Along the road vines hung in graceful festoons from tree 
to tree, and peasants were gathering mulberry leaves for silk- 
worms. 

After running to the Gallery, just to have a momentary look 
at the two famous Correggios, we started from Parma at nine in 
the morning, and coming on rapidly through Piacenza and Lodi, 
entered Milan just before dark. 

By the grandeur of the Cathedral we were even more moved 
than when we first beheld it. Then we explored its populous 
roof; now we descended into its vaults, peopled too with statues 
and busts, some of silver to the value of more than a million of 
francs. About the tomb of St. Charles Borromeo there is gold 
and silver to the amount of four million francs. Guard it well, 
Priests. 'Twill be a treasure on that day, which will come, 
when this people's deep, smothered cry shall end at last in a tri- 
umphant shout. From the Cathedral we betook ourselves to the 
barn-like place, which contains Leonardo da Vinci's fresco of the 
Last Supper. Here is the inspiration of genius. To produce 
that head of Jesus, what a conception must have been long nursed 
in the great painter's brain, and with what intense force of will 
must he have embodied it, to stamp upon human features suck 
pre-eminence, such benignity, such majesty ! With this, the 
vigor and variety in the superb heads of the apostles, the grace 



108 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

and spirit of the grouping, bring tlie scene before you with such 
speaking presence, that one sees how pictures can strengthen and 
keep alive religious belief. By its vivid reality, its beauty and 
character, this sublime picture proclaims the truth of wliat it 
sets forth, and takes the mind captive with its power and its 
fascination. 

As we approached Como, we enjoyed much the contact again 
with mountains. After an early breakfast, June 12th, we were 
on board the steamboat at seven, to explore the beautiful lake. 
At nine, about midway, we landed, in order to see and have the 
views from the Villas Serbelloni, Melzi, and Somariva. 

The villa Somariva has some fine sculpture by Thorwaldsen 
and Canova, and a number of Italian and French pictures. The 
French Ideal is a medium of the human form taken from mea- 
surement of the antique. The genuine Ideal is attainable only 
through an earnest loving study of nature, directed by a sure eye 
and a warm sense of the beautiful. Modern French art has an 
eccentric look ; whereas, Art should always be concentric, seek, 
ing, that is, the centre of all forms and expressions, the conceu. 
tration into an individv^fil of the best qualities of many. Hence, 
high Art looks always tranquil and modest. French Art is apt 
to have an excited, conceited air. 

Stopping as we did where the Lake branches, we had followed 
the advice of a Milanese gentleman, who accosted us in the boat. 
Had we gone on, we should not have made by a good deal so 
much of our morning ; for the upper end of the lake has less 
interest and beauty than the middle. On re-embarking, as the 
boat returned, between one and two, we renewed conversation 
with the friendly giver of such good counsel. He had spent his 
Sunday in a passive enjoyment of the rich soft beauties of the 
Lake. This was the easy and highest form of worship for a 
nature like his. He was a man past forty, of rather more than 
middle stature, with a well made^ somewhat stout frame, inclined 



AN EPICUREAN. 109 

to fullness. His complexion was of that rich creamy tint, seen 
oftener in Italy than elsewhere, with blue-black hair and smooth 
whiskers ; a handsome man, with regular, bold features, that 
didn't look bold, from the gentleness of his expression ; for his 
graxjeful mouth and large white teeth were formed for smiling, 
and his black eyes were not those glowing Italian orbs, in whose 
depths so much of good or evil lies sleeping, — you know not 
which, — they were shallow, handsome, happy eyes. He ordered 
coffee, and pressed me to take a cup. After this, he igfrered me 
a cigar from his case, and upon my declining that too, he seemed 
to conclude that 1 lived a very poor life. For himself, he let not 
an hour in the day go by, he said, without regaling his body with 
some or other fragrant stimulant. He urged us, should we revisit 
Milan, to stop at the hotel where he lodged, whose cuisine and 
wines he praised with thankful animation. Yet, he was not one 
of those who spend their mornings in expectation of their dinner. 
He was too subtle an epicurean for such a dead diurnal vacuity. 
Though his dinner was the chief circumstance of his being, still, 
after his mode, he valued time, and knew how to bridge over the 
wide gulfs between meals upon pillars constructed of minor enjoy- 
ments, including among them easy acts of kindness and courtesy. 

We got back to Como at four, and started immediately for 
Lugano, our resting-place that night. The Lake of Lug-ano 
pleased us even more than that of Como. There is greiter 
variety in the forms of the mountains. These fairy Lakes, uniting 
Italy to Switzerland, combine the beauties of both. 

As you advance from Lugano, the mountains close in upon you, 
the scenery growing bolder and grander. Through an opening not 
far from Lugano, we had a clear distant view down into Lake 
Maggiore, and then we came upon the picturesque old town of 
Bolinzona, flanked with turrets, the turrets flanked with moun- 
tains. Towards evening we approached the southern sublimity 
of this pass, a rent in the mountain nearly a mile long, where the 



110 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. . 

river Ticino, — which till now had this deep gorge all to himself, — 
has been forced by the engineer to make room for a road, the 
angry, headlong torrent being thrice crossed and recrossed in ihe 
course of the mile. As we emerged from this magnificent pas- 
sage, the mountains stretched up into Swiss stature, their sides 
clothed with firs as with a plumage. 'Twas dark when we drove 
into Airolo, at the foot of the St. Gothard, where good beds 
(iwaited us. 

First through green fields and firs, then rugged wastes, and 
finally, torrents, snow, and bare rock, up, up, up we went for three 
or four hours, the steep road making its way zigzag on terraces. 
The summit of the pass, a scene of cold dreary sterility, is a groat 
geographical centre ; for within a circuit of ten miles are the 
sources of four of the chief rivers of Europe, the Rhine, the 
Rhone, the Reuss, and the Ticino. 

Now we set off in a race with the Reuss, who bounds five 
thousand feet down the mountain in a series of cataracts, to rush 
into the Lake of the Four Cantons at Fluellen. We crossed the 
Devil's Bridge, the northern sublimity of the St. Gothard pass ; 
and the Pfafensprung, so called from the tradition of a monk hav- 
ing leapt from rock to rock, across the torrent, with a maiden in 
his arms. That's a fine tradition. One cannot but have a 
kind of respect for the bold amorous monk. He deserved the 
maiden — better than any other monk. The beautiful maiden, — I 
for beautiful she could not but be, to inspire a feat so daring, — 
must have been still and passive in the arms of her monastic 
Hercules ; for had she made herself heavy by scratching and 
kicking, whilst in mid air over that fearful chasm, I fancy the 
tradition would have been more tragical. Never was maiden 
more honorably won — by a monk. We passed through Altdorf, 
Tell's Altdorf, and taking the steamboat at Fluellen, traversed 
under a serene sky the Lake of the Four Cantons, with its sublime 
scenery, landing in Lucerne after sun-down. Thus, from dawn to 



SWISS SCENrJlY. Ill 



twilight wp. had crossed one of the grand Alpine passes, and the 
whole length of the most magnificent Lake in Europe. This was 
a rich day. 

The next morning, before starting for Thun, we took time to 
walk a few steps beyond one of the gates to see the colossal lion, 
cut in the side of a rock, as designed by Thorwaldsen, in com- 
memoration of the faithful Swiss, who fell defending the royal 
family of France in the Tuileries in 1792. By the Emmendale 
we reached Thun the following day. Here, in this beautiful 
portal to the sublime scenery of the Bernese Alps, we sat our- 
selves down in quiet lodgings, by the water's edge, near where 
the river issues from the lake. 

In the grandeurs, sublimities, movements of Nature in Switzer- 
land, the creative energy reveals itself in doings and voices that 
astound the imagination. Nature seems here more than else- 
where vivified by the breath of God. Those gigantic piles of 
riven rock, fixed in sublime ruggedness, proclaim with unwonted 
emphasis, the awful hand that arrested their upheaving. Those 
terrific fields of eternal ice, the nourishing mothers of great 
rivers, tempt the imagination towards the mysterious source of 
Nature's processes. The common forms and elements of our 
globe are here exaggerated. Hills and valleys become moun- 
tains and gorges; winter dwells on the peaks throughout sum- 
mor ; streams are obliged to be torrents. Walking in a meadow, 
you come suddenly on a streamlet, that looks in the grass like a 
transparent serpent at full speed, it runs with such startling velo- 
city, as though it had a momentous mysterious mission. The 
Hirers rush out of the Lakes, as if they had twice the work to do 
of other rivers. 

At the end of a month, we quitted Thun, about the middle of 
July, to return, for the rest of the summer, to the water-cure 
rslulilishment at Boppart. 'Twould have been wiser had we 
gone to Gracffenberg. Priesnitz understands his own discovery 



112 SCENES AND THCtTGHTS IN EUROPE. 

better than any one else, and inspires his own patients with e 
deeper confidence. At Graeffenberg, moreover, there is moun- 
tain air and the coldest water. Through the secluded Munster 
valley we reached Basle, whence by railroad, post, and steamboat 
we rapidly descended the Rhine to Boppart. The Rhine suffers 
at first by being seen when one's vision has just been enlarged and 
sublimated by Switzerland. 

The left, the wooded, shore of the Rhine was golden with au- 
tumnal foliage, the right pale with fading vineyards, when in ihe 
middle of October we again turned our faces southward. 'Twas 
eleven o'clock, a chilly moonlight night, when, at the gate of 
Frankfort, the officer questioned us, " Are you the Duke ? " — 
" No, I am an American." — '* Oh, then," to the postillion, " drive 
on." 

Our former admiration of Dannecker's statue of Ariadne was 
somewhat qualified, for since we first saw it, our eyes had been 
strengthened in Italy. The composition is admirable, the attitude 
graceful ; but the limbs want rounding and expressive finish, and 
the head is stiff*, as mimicry of the antique always is. 

It being too late to re-enter Italy by the SplUgen pass, we bent 
our course more eastward towards Munich and the Tyrol, through 
the fine old German towns of Wurzburg and Augsburg. We 
might have been present at the festival held to celebrate the com- 
pletion of the Walhalla, a magnificent temple on the shore of the I 
Danube, erected by the King of Bavaria, in honor of German t 
worth and genius, to be adorned with the statues and busts of 3 
Germany's great men, from Arminius to Schiller. When I learnt I 
afterwards that from this temple Luther is to be excluded, I was » 
glad that we had not gone out o-f our way to see it. Figure to I 
yourself the Apollo of the Vatican with the head purposely taken * 
oflf, or the Cathedral of Strasburg with the spire demolished, and 
you will have some notion of the grossness of this outrage. A . 
German Pantheon without Luther ! The grandest national temple i 



MUNICH; THE TYROL. llC . 

that Architecture could devise, and sculpture adorn with the effi- 
gies of German greatness, yet left bare of that of Luther, could ' 
never be but a fragment. The impertinence of this pe^tty, tran- 
sitory King, to try to put an affront on the mighty, undying Sove- 
reign, Luther ! 

In Munich there is a noble collection of pictures ; but the city, 
with its fresh new palaces, and churches, and theatres, has a made 
up look. It seems the work of Dilettantism : it is not a warm 
growth out of the wants and aspirations of the time. It is as if 
it had been said : Architecture and Painting are fine things ; 
therefore we will have them. The King of Bavaria, the builder 
and collector of all this, has been a great " Patron " of the Arts. 
Latterly his patronage is said to have taken another direction, and 
he has become a patron of Religion. The one is as proper a 
subject for patronage as the other. 

We entered the Tyrol on the 22d of October, after a light fall 
of snow, which weighed just enough on the fir trees to add a grace 
to their shapes, and on their dark green foliage sparkled in the 
sun, like a transparent silver canopy. Tyrolese scenery we saw 
in its most picturesque aspect. Our road went through Innspruck, 
the Capital of the Tyrol, lying in a capacious valley encompassed 
by mountains ; thence over the Bremer through Botzen, historical 
Trent, and Roveredo. Coming down from the chilly mountains, 
the sun of Italy was luxurious. What a fascination there is in 
this warm beautiful land ! 

We stopped half a day at Verona. Dante and Shakspeare 
have both been here ; Dante in person, as guest of the Scaligers, 
Shakspeare in Juliet, that resplendent d.umond exhibited by the 
lightning of a tropical night-storm. Just out of the town they 
show a huge, rough, open stone coffer, as Juliet's tomb ; and in 
one of the principal streets, our cicerone pointed to a house which 
he said was that of the Capulets. Preferring to believe, we made 
no further inquiries. So, we have seen Juliet's tomb, and the 



114 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

house of the Capulets. We saw too the palace of the Scaligers, 
wherein, at the table of Can-grande, Dante hurled at his host that 
celebrated sarcasm. One can readily figure the sublime, thought- 
ful, sorrowful man, sitting silent as was his wont, scornful of the 
levities and follies of speech around him, and not keeping his scorn 
out of his great countenance, when, after some coarse sally from 
a favorite buffoon, the prince, turning to the poet, said, " I wonder 
that this man, who is a fool, can make himself so agreeable to us 
all, while you, who are called wise, have not been able to do so." 
— " You would not wonder," answered Dante, " if you knew 
that friendship comes of similarity of habits and sympathy of 
souls." 

At Verona we turned from our southward course, and went off 
due east to Venice, without halting in Vicensa and Padua, that 
lay in our path. We rowed in Gondolas, saw Titian's picture of 
the Assumption, walked over the Rialto, inspected the Arsenal, 
stood near the Bridge of Sighs, took chocolate in the place of St. 
Mark, and rowed back in the Lagune to Mestre, whence by Padua 
and Rovigo we came to Ferrara. From the people a traveller has 
to do with on the highways of Europe, he gets much of the 
caricature of what in the world is called politeness, namely, a 
smooth lie varnished. 

A scarcity of post-horses detained us a day in Ferrara, and the 
bridge over the Po having been swept away by late floods, we had 
to make a circuit to reach Bologna. The Manuscripts of Tasso 
and Ariosto in the Library, Ariosto's house and Tasso's prison, 
beguiled the time in the desolate old town of Ferrara. 

Off the beaten highways, from which the floods forced us, the 
people looked fresh and innocent. Wherever strangers throng, 
there knavery thrives. Hence, on the great routes of Europe, 
the traveller is constantly vexed and soured by impositions, from 
the most brazen to the most subtle. From the obsequious inn- 
keeper to the coarse postillion, he is the victim of the whole class 



POWERS'S SLAVE 115 



with whom he has to deal. Yet he would be very unjust who 
should thence infer that cheating and lying are habitual with the 
poople among whom by these classes he is so often plagued and 
wronged. The country between Ferrara and Bologna overflows 
with population. Under this warm sun, the fertile valley of 
the Po yields meat, drink and clothing all at once; silk, vine 
and grain growing in plenteous crops at the same time in one 
field. 

At Florence we found Powers with his model of the Greek 
Slave nearly finished. What easy power there is in genius ! 
Here is one of the most difllicult tasks of sculpture, — a nude fe- 
male figure, — conceived and executed with a perfectness that 
completely conceals all the labor of thought and hand bestowed 
upon it. Most worthy to be a daughter of the Eve, this figure is 
altogether of another type, slender and maidenly. Like Eve, it 
is a revelation of the symmetry, the inexhaustible grace, the in- 
finite power and beauty of the human form. What an attitude, 
— how naturally brought about, — what a wonderful management 
of the resources of such limbs for expression ! It is a figure 

" To radiate beauty everlastingly." 

From it one learns what a marvellous work is the human bodv 
One feels himself elevated and purified, while contemplating a 
creation so touching and beautiful. Of this statue a distinguished 
American clergyman, whom we had the pleasure to meet in Italy, 
said, that were a hundred libertines to collect round it, attracted 
by its nudity, they would stand abashed and rebuked in its 
presence. 

This is the fourth ideal female head that Powers has produced, 
and yet there is not betWQ,en any two of them the slightest re- 
semblance. Each one is a fresh independent creation. Not to 
imitate himself evinces in a sculptor even a still greater depth of 



116 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

resource than not to imitate the antique. It is proof of a mastery 
over the human countenance. Its elements and constituents 
Powers carries in his brain. This is the genuine creative 
energy. 

Greenough was absent in America, and his studio was closed. 
Clevinger was at work at the model of his Indian, his first ideal 
effort.* 

Pisa, famous for its leaning tower and its University, which has 
able professors, is, for one who wants quiet, a pleasant place to 
spend three months of winter. The Amo, flowing through it 
from east to west, for nearly a mile in a gentle curve, cuts 
the town into two parts, united by three bridges. Our front 
windows look out upon the river and its western bridge, and from 
one in the rear there is a view of the long jagged outline of the 
distant Appenines running towards Genoa, the highest peaks 
covered with snow. Our walks along the Lung-Arno carry us 
daily by the palace of Byron, the memory of whom does not seem 
to be much cherished by the Italians here. 

On the 22d of February we found ourselves in lively, dirty, 
commercial Leghorn, which vulgar cacophonous dissyllable is in- 
tended to be a rendering into English of the melodious Italian 
name of this town, which is Livorno. That the Mediterranean 
well deserves its reputation of being a very ugly sea in winter 
we had sickening proof. In a stout French steamboat we were 
two nights and a day, instead of one night, in getting from Leg- 
horn to Civita Vecchia. 

Friday, February 24th, 1843. 

We cast anchor in the small harbor of Civita Vecchia at seven, 

* The last time I saw Clevinger, he was standing before tliis work, with 
his frank, manly countenance animated by the pleasure and intentness of 
the labor. In the budding of his fame, he "was cut off, a loss to his family, 
bis friends, his country 



APPROACH TO ROME. H7 

landed at eiglit, and at ten set off for Rome. For several miles 
the road ran along the sea shore, through a desolate but not barren 
country, witli scarce a sign of population. A few massive frag- 
mtMits of a bridge from the hands of the Romans, gave a sudden 
interest to the deserted region, and kept our minds awake until 
three o'clock, when, still eleven miles distant from Rome, we 
came in sight of St. Peter's, which drew us towards it with such 
force, that we wondered at the languor of the postillion, who 
drove his dull hacks as if at the end of our journey there were 
nothing but a supper and a snug hostelrie. We soon lost sight 
of St. Peter's. The fields, — and this is not strictly part of the 
Campagna, — still looked dreary and abandoned. Up to the very 
walls of the ancient mistress of the world, and the present 
spiritual mistress of many millions more than the Caesars ever 
swayed, the land seems as if it had long lain under a maledic 
tion. At last, towards sundown, after an ascent, whence we 
overlooked the " Eternal City," the Cupola of St. Peter's filled 
our eyes of a sudden, and seemingly within a stone's throw of 
us. Descending again, we entered Rome by a gate near the 
Church, and, escorted by a horseman, whose casque led one to 
imagine him a mimic knight of Pharsalia, we drove close by the 
gigantic colonnade that encloses the court of St. Peter's, crossed 
the Tiber by the Bridge of Adrian, and after several turns through 
narrow streets, drove up to the temple of Marcus Aurelius An- 
toninus, with its front of fluted marble columns, under which we 
passed into the interior and there halted. 'Twas the Custom 
House, whence a dollar having quickly obtained for us release 
from the delay and vexation of search, we drove at dusk through 
the Corso to the Hotel de V Europe in the Piazza di Spagna. Here 
we spent the evening in planning, and in trying to think ourselves 
into a full consciousness that we were in Rome. 

Saturday, Feb. 35th. 

Before breakfast I took my first walk in Rome up the broad 



118 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Stairway from the Piazza di Spagna to the Pincian Hill ; but the 
atmosphere was hazy. Later, I walked down the Corso, whose 
Palaces look wealth and luxury. A Palace without political 
power, what is it but a gilded Prison, where refined sensuality 
strives to beguile the intellect in its servitude ! A scarlet gilt 
coach rolled by, with gorgeous trappings and three footmen in 
flaunting liveries crowded together on the foot-board behind ; an 
exhibition, which shows manhood most disgustingly bemasked, 
and is an unchristian ostentation of the mastery of man over man. 
'Twas the coach of a Cardinal ! of one who assumes to be the 
pre-elect interpreter of the invisible God ! of one whom millions 
believe to be among the most divinely-enlightened expositors of the 
self-denying Jesus' words ! Truly, God rights the wrong in our 
little world by general laws and stoops not to an individual ; else, 
it were neither unreasonable nor profane to expect that the sleek 
horses of this silken-robed priest might refuse to carry him to the 
altar, raised to him, who declared it to be hard for a rich man to 
enter into the kingdom of heaven. Possibly he is self-deluded ; 
for so great is the power of man upon man, that the world-wide 
and time-heaped belief in his sanctity may have persu'aded even 
himself, that between his life and his doctrine there is no wide- 
gaping inconsistency. Some too, being stronger in religious 
sentiment than in intellect, are blinded, under the bandage o*' 
custom, to the monstrous imposture. But many a one, having 
capacity for and opportunities of culture, must be the conscious 
worshipper of ambition and the knowing defiler of the Holy, and 
his life therefore — what I leave each reader to name for himself. 
This is a gala-day in Rome, being one of the last of the Car- 
nival. At two we drove to the Corso, where we fell into a double 
file of carriages going in opposite directions. The Corso is the 
principal street of modern Rome, about a mile long, proud with 
palaces, columns, and open squares. Out of most of the nume- 
rous windows streamed long crimson silk hangings. At short 



THE FORUM. ijg 



intervals were dragoons as a mounted police. The street was 
thronged with people, many in masks and fantastic costumes ; 
the windows were crowded with gaily dressed spectators. But 
the chief source of animation to the gay scene, is the practice of 
throwing bonbons and boquets from carriage to carriage, or in 
or out of the windows, or from or at the pedestrians, a general 
interchange in short of missile greetings. Most of the bonbons 
are of clay, or paste and flowers, and hence can be dealt out pro- 
fusely without much cost. You assail whom you please, and 
wire masks are worn by those who are careful of their eyes. 
*Tis an occasion when the adult lay aside their maturity and put 
on childhood again, and, as among children, there is the fullest 
freedom and equality. We knew not a soul in the throng, and 
dealt our handfuls of powdered pills into carriages and windows, 
and received them in turn, with as much glee as if we had been 
harlequins in a pantomime. We came in towards six. 

Sunday, Feb. 26th. 

We drove first to the Forum. Here then had been the centre 
of the Roman world ! There before you is a door of the ancient 
Capitol ! A few straggling columns and arches stand up still 
manfully against time. You think 'tis something to find your- 
self face to face with what has heard the voice of Cicero and the 
Gracchi, to shake hands, as it were, across a gulf of twenty cen- 
turies, with the cotemporaries of the Scipios ; when you learn 
that all that you behold are relics of the Imperial epoch. They 
showed us too the walls and two columns of a temple of Romulus 
with a door of well-wroughrbronze. Although one likes to be- 
lieve on such occasions, we had to turn incredulous from these, 
and settled our minds again into positive faith before the arch of 
Titus, which stands at the end of the Forum opposite the Capitol, 
and is enriched with sculpture illustrating the destruction of 
Jerusalem, in commemoration of which it was erected to the 



12.) SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Emperor Titus. Passing under this, which Jews to this day 
will not do, we drove down the Via Sacra to the Colosseum, near 
which is the arch of Constantine. Conceive of an elliptical 
Theatre with stone seats all round rising row back of row, to 
hold one hundred thousand spectators, who came in and out with- 
out delay or confusion through seventy inlets. Here in this vast 
arena may be said to have been represented the conflict between 
paganism and Christianity. Here were slaughtered tens of thou- 
sands of Christians, thrown to wild beasts as the most grateful 
spectacle to the Roman populace. The arena itself is now a 
Christian temple, sanctified by the blood of the faith-sustained 
victims. 

From the Colosseum we went to the Church of St. John of the 
Lateran, where, if what they tell you were true, are preserved 
the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul. We were shown too what 
the exhibiting priest said is the table on which Jesus took tlie last 
supper with the apostles. This with other relics is declared to 
have been brought from Jerusalem by Helen, the mother of Con- 
stantine. This is the oldest church in Europe, and is called the 
mother of all others. 

In the afternoon we drove to St. Peter's. I had not imagined 
the entrance to be so colossal. Before passing the immense por, 
tal, I was filled with wonder, which was not diminished by the 
view within. It is a symbol of the power and hopes of man. 
What a majestic work of human hands ! All its magnificent 
details are swallowed in its immensity. The one all-absorbinrf 
idea is vastness. 

ONDAY, Feb. iJTth. 

Our first visit to-day was to Crawford's studio. His Orpheus 
is here reputed a statue of high merit. The conception is at 
once simple and rich. The attitude is well adapted to display 
life and graice, the long line from the hindmost foot to the end of 



THE CENCr. - m 



the curved arm, being one of the finest sweeps the human body 
can present. The act of protecting the eyes with the hand, im- 
parts life as well by the shadow it casts on the countenance as 
by its characteristic propriety. The large fabulous-looking heads 
of the music-subdued Cerberus sleep well, and the group takes 
at once such hold of the imagination, that their expression seems 
that of involuntary sleep. 'Tis in itself a great merit in a work 
of art to make the mind of the beholder assist its effect. The 
selection of the subject and the execution are equally happy, and 
denote the genial Artist. We went next to Thorwaldsen's studio. 
Here I was somewhat disappointed.* 

At the Barberini Palace we saw the Beatrice Cenci of Guide. 
People go to see it on account of her most awful story ; and the 
story is not fully told to one who has not seen the picture. Guide 
was wrought up to his highest power of execution. The face is 
of the most beautiful, and through this beauty streams the bewil. 
dered soul, telling the terrific tale. It looks like a picture after 
which the artist had taken a long rest. It is wonderful. We 
next went hastily through the Doria Gallery, one of the richest 
private collections in the world. 

Tuesday, Feb. 28th. 

After breakfast I walked to the Minerva church to see the 
funeral ceremony for a Cardinal. In the square before the 
church was the Pope's carriage with six horses, and a score of 
the scarlet carriages of the Cardinals. The interior of the church 
was hung with black and gold. The body of the deceased Car- 
dinal lay in state, in the centre of the nave, on a broad bulky 
couch raised about ten feet. Around it at some distance were 
burning purple candles : The music of the service was solemn 
and well executed, in part by castrali. The Pope descended from 
his throne, and, supported on either side by a Cardinal, and at 

• It will be seen that this first impression was afterwards removed. 
7 



122 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

tended by other ecclesiastical dignitaries, went to the front of the 
couch and pronounced absolution upon the deceased. He then 
walked twice round the body, throwing up incense towards it out 
of a golden censer. His pontifical robe was crimson and gold. 
He evidently performed the. service with emotion. The whole 
spectacle was imposing and luxurious. The gorgeous couch and 
habiliments of the deceased, the rich and various robes, the pur- 
ple candles, the sumptuous solemn hangings, the incense and the 
mellow music, compounded a refined feast for the senses. Such 
ceremonies can speak but feebly to the soul. In the crowd that 
filled the large church, there was observable some curiosity, and 
a quiet air of enjoyment, but very little devotion. After the ser- 
vice, as the Pope's carriage on leaving the square passed close 
by me, an elderly man at my side dropped suddenly on his knees, 
shouting " Santo Padre, la benedizione," which the Pope gave as 
his horses went off in a trot, and of which I too, from my position, 
had a share. 

In the afternoon we hired seats in the Corso, to see the last day 
of the Carnival. The Italians, disciplined by Church and State, 
know how to run wild on such an occasion without grossness or, 
disorder. People all shouting and fooling, and no coarse extrava- 
gances or interruptions of good humor. At sunset the street was 
cleared in the centre, and half a dozen horses started at one end, 
without riders, to race to the other. After this, the evening 
ended with the entertainment of the mocolo, which is a thin wax 
lighted taper, wherewith one half the crowd provide themselves, 
while the others, with handkerchiefs and similar weapons, strike 
at them to put them out. This makes an illuminafion of the 
whole street, and keeps up a constant noisy combat. Thousands ; 
of people in masks and fantastic costumes. 

Wednesday, March 1st, 1843 

If priests were raised nearer to God by distinguiphing them } 



ASH-WEDNESDAY. 183 



selves from their fellow-men through the means of gorgeous gar- 
niture and pompous ceremony, the exhibition we this morning 
witnessed at the Sistine Chapel would have been solemn and 
inspiring. Up flight after flight of the broad gently ascending 
stairway of St. Peter's, we reached the celebrated Chapel. Seated 
on the pontifical throne, on one side of the altar at the further 
extremity of the Chapel, under Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, 
was the Pope. On his head was a lofty mitre of silver tissue, 
and his stole was of crimson and gold. To his right, on an ele- 
vated broad ottoman that ran along the wall of the Chapel and 
crossed it about the middle, were ranged more than twenty Car- 
dinals in robes of light purple silk and gold. Around the Pope 
was a crowd of ministering Prelates, and at the foot of each Car- 
dinal sat, in a picturesque dress, an attendant, apparently a priest, 
who aided him to change his robe, an operation that was performed 
more than once during the long service. The folio missal, out 
of which the Pope read, was held before him ; when he approached 
the altar from his throne his robe was held up ; and in the same 
way one of the attendant prelates removed and replaced several 
limes his mitre. Part of the service consisted in kissing his foot, 
a ceremony which was performed by about a hundred bishops 
and prelates in various ecclesiastical costumes. This being the 
first day of Lent, Ash-W ednesday, the benediction of the ashes is 
given always by the Pope, and on the heads of those who have 
the privilege of kissing his toe (Cardinals don't go lower than 
the knee) he lays a pinch of the consecrated ashes. 

When I look back to the whole spectacle, though only after the 
lapse of a few hours, I seem to have been present at some bar- 
baric pageant. The character of the exhibition overbears my 
knowledge of its purport, and I could doubt that I have witnessed 
a Christian ritual. 

Afterwards in passing ovt-r Monte Cavallo, we came suddenly 
upon the colossal statues by Piiidias and Praxiteles 'Twas a 



iU SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE 

____ . t 

rich surprise. Like St. Peter's and the Colosseum they sur 
passed my expectation. Their heroic forms stood out against the 
sky like majestic apparitions come to testify to the glories of old 
Greece. 

In the afternoon we went to Gibson's studio, where we were 
pleased both with the artist and his works. 

Thursday, March 2d. 

First to the Capitol, built, under the direction of Michael 
Angelo, on the foundation of the ancient. Innumerable fragments 
and statues. In the Colossal River-God in the Court, the grace 
and slumbering power of the large recumbent figure are remark, 
able. According to our custom at the first visit, we went hastily 
through the gallery, only pausing before the dying Gladiator. 
Here, as in all master-pieces of Art, is the intense infusion of the 
will of the Artist into his work. This is the inscrutable power 
of genius. 

Thence to the Church of Santa Maria Majore, the nave of 
which is supported by thirty-six beautiful columns, taken from a 
temple of Juno. Modern Rome is doubly enriched out of the 
spoils of ancient. 

In the afternoon we drove to the Vatican. What a wilderness 
of marble ! You walk, I was about to say, for miles through 
avenues of sculpture. Of the Apollo, Laocoon, and Antinous, I 
can say nothing to-day, except that great statues lose much in 
casts. What an edifice ! Drove to the Villa Borghese. 

Friday, March 3d. 

Our first stage to-day in our daily travel over Rome was at the 

baths of Caracalla, one of the most emphatic testimonials of Roman 

magnificence. The ruins, consisting now of little else than the 

■outer and dividing walls, cover several acres. Sixteen hundred 

persons could bathe at a time. Besides the baths, there were 



CHURCHES OF ROME. I2fi 

halls for games and for sculpture, and here Ijavc been du"- up 
several masterpieces. Here and tlicre a piece of the lofty roof is 
jjreserved, and we ascended to the top of one of the halls, whence 
there is a good view of a large section of the region of ruins. 
Except in the Fora and Arches, one sees nowhere columns among 
the ruins. These, as well as nearly all marble in whatever 
shape, being too precious to be left to adorn the massive remnants 
of Pagan Rome, have been taken to beautify the Churciies and 
Palaces of her Christian heir. 

From the baths of Caracalla we went along the Appian way, 
passing the tomb of the Scipios, and under the ai'ch of Drusus, 
to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, a large massive round tower, 
the largest monument ever raised to a woman. Thence to the 
Columbarium or tomb of the household of the Csesars. The 
name is derived from the resemblance of the structure to a 
pigeon-house, as well in its general form as in that of the little 
semi-circular receptacles for the ashes. 

In the afternoon we visited among other churches that of 
Santa Maria Degli Angeh', formerly the Baths of Diocletian, 
which was adapted to the shape and purpose of a church by 
Michael Angelo. A grand one it is with its immense pillars of 
Egyptian granite. 

As according to Roman Catholic usage, several masses aro 
performed in one morning to as many difterent congregations, 
a >riven number of inhabitants would require as Catholics a much 
smaller number of churches than it would being Protestant. But 
were the whole people of Rome to assemble at worship, at the 
same liour, in as many churches as would be needed for easy 
accommodation, even then, nine tenths of them would be empty. 
For three or four centuries the population has been at no time 
;Tiore numerous tlian it is now, and seldom so numerous ; and 
owing to civil and foreign wars previous to the fifteenth century, 
and to the seventy years' absence of the Papal Court, it has 



i26 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

probably not been greater than at present since the downfall of 
the Empire. So that there always have been ten times as many 
churches as are needed. Rome has a population of about one 
hundred and sixty thousand souls, and counts over three hundred 
churches. With thirty, all her people would have ample room 
for worship. Had half of the thought, labor, and money, wasted 
in building, adorning and preserving the others, been bestowed 
upon schools and seminaries, there would have been not less re- 
ligion, and far more mental culture and morality ; and Rome 
might now be really the intellectual and spiritual capital of the 
world, instead of being the centre of a decrepid form of Chris- 
tianity, to which she clings chiefly by the material ties that bind 
men to an ecclesiastical system which embosoms high places of 
worldly eminence. 

Nothing is shallower than carpingly to point out how commu- 
nities or individuals might be better than they are. The above 
estimate is not made in a spirit of barren detraction ; it shows 
into what extravagant abuses of God's best gifts man is prone to 
run. There is at any rate comfort in the evidence here pre- 
sented, — if such were wanting, — of great spiritual vitality in 
human nature. Part of the gross misdirection thereof may be 
ascribed to the mental darkness during many of the first ages 
of Christian Europe, and part to the selfishness necessarily inhe- 
rent in a Body constituted like the Roman Catholic priesthood. || 
The darkness has been greatly diminished, and individual inde- 
pendence has been sufficiently developed not to abide much 
longer corporate usurpations, civil or ecclesiastical. There may 
be hope, that through this natural fund of spirituality, under 
healthier development and clearer guidance, humanity will go on 
righting itself more and more, and that under its influence even 
Rome shall be rejuvenated, and cease to be the hoary juggler, 
that out of the spiritual wants of man wheedles raiment of gold 
for her own body and mansions of marble. 






M. ANGELO'S MOSES. 187 



Drove out to Mount Sacer, and afterwards to tlie Pincian. 

Saturday, March 4th. 

Rain every day. Among the curiosities we tliis morning 
insnectcd in the library of the Vatican, were a collection 
of cameos and other small antiques dug up in Rome ; 
several of the bronze plates whereon were inscribed the de- 
crees of the Senate, but of the fallen Senate under the Empe- 
rors ; specimens of Giotto and Cimabue ; manuscript of Cicero's 
Treatise on the Republic, made in the fifth century, arid written 
over by St. Augustine, with a treatise on the Psalms ; manuscript 
of Petrarch ; illuminated edition of the Divina Comedia ; papy- 
rus. To us as well as to the Pope it is a convenience that St. 
Peter's and the Vatican are cheek by cheek. On coming out 
of the library we entered the great church to enjoy its beautiful 
vastness, • 

In the afternoon we went to see Michael Angelo's colossal 
statue of Moses in the church of St. Peter in chains, a beautiful 
church (the interior I mean) with twenty fluted Parian columns. 
Here are preserved, 'tis said, the chains of St. Peter. The 
Mases is a great masterpiece. It justifies the sublime lines of 
the sonnet it inspired to Zappi : 

Questi e Mose quando scendea del monte, 
E gran parte del Nume avea nel Volto.* 

Power and thought are stamped on the brow ; the nose breathes 
the breath of a concentrated giant ; an intellectual smile sits on 
the large oriental mouth, which looks apt to utter words of com- 
fort or command ; the long, thick, folded beard bespeaks vigor, 
and gives grandeur to the countenance ; and the eyes, of which, 
contrary to the usage of high sculpture, the pupils are marked, 

* This is Moses when he came down from the mountain, 
And had in his countenance a great part of the Deity, 



ISe SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

absolutely sparkle. The figure is seated, with however one foot 
drawn back, as if ready to rise, an attitude correspondent to the 
life and fire of the countenance. From this grand work one 
learns what a mighty soul was in Michael Angelo. 

In the sacristy is a beautiful head by Guido, representing 
Hope, as rapt and still as an angel listening to the music of 
Keaven. In this church was held under the Emperor Constan- 
tine, as says an inscription in it, a council, which condemned 
Arian and other schismatics, and burnt their books. We next 
visited St. Martin on the Hill, also constructed with columns 
from an ancient temple. Through the church we descended into 
a vault below where had been Imperial baths, and afterwards a 
church of the early Christians before Constantine. Adjoining 
this venerable spot was an opening that led into the catacombs, 
where the persecuted Christians used to conceal themselves. 
On slabs 'n the upper church were inscribed the nairtes of many 
martyrs w ose tombs had been found below ; among them those 
of several .'^opes. Thence towards sunset, we went to the 
church of the Jesuits, laden, like so many others, with pictures 
and marbles and sparkling altars, and sepulchral monuments. 
The grand altar just finished cost upwards of one hundred 
thousand dollars. On one side of the church a thin sallow Jesuit 
in a dark robe and cap was preaching to about a hundi'ed per- 
sons, chiefly of th. poorer class, I regretted that I had not come 
in time to hear ni re of his sermon, for a purer pronunciation 
and sweeter voice 1 never listened to. His elocution too was 
good and his gesticulation graceful, and his matter and manner 
v/ere naif and unjesuitlike. He told his auditors that what the 
holy Virgin required of them, especially now during Lent, was 
to examine their souls, and if they found them spotted with sins j 
to free themselves therefrom by a full confession, and if not, to 
betake themselves more and more to the zealous cultivation of 
the virtues. There was a sincerity, simplicity and sweetness 



ST PETFrx'«!. tam 

in thr f(>eling and utterance of this yoiincr man, that were most 
fascinating. When he liad finislicd, he glided away into the 
recesses of the dim cliurcli lilvc an apparition. 

Sunday, March SiJi. 

To-day we remitted our labors. Late in the morning I 
walked up the stairway of the Trinity of the Mount to the gar- 
den of the Villa Medici ; and afterwards to Monte Cavallo to 
behold again the two colossal Greek Statues. They must be 
seen early or late, for at other hours the sky dazzles the sight 
as you attempt to look up at them. 

In the afternoon we drove to St. Peter's, Its immensity enlarges 
at each repeated beholding. 'Tis so light, — the interior I metwi, 
— so illuminated, that it looks as though it had been poised from 
above, and not built upward from an earthly foundation. In one 
section of it is a series of confessionals, dedicated to the various 
languages of Europe. In each sat a priest ready to listen to and 
shrive in the tongue inscribed over his portal. Vespers at four. 
The voices were fine, but the music, not being sacred, was not 
effective in a church. One hears at times in music cadences of 
such expression, that they seem about to utter a revelation ; and 
then they fade of a sudden into common melody, a's though the . 
earthly medium were incompetent to transmit the heavenly voice. 

We drove afterward to the Pincian Hill in a cold north wind. 

WoNDAY, March 6th. 

Walked before breakfast to Monte Cavallo. Our first stage 
after breakfast was to the house of Nero, over which were built. 
in part, the Baths of Titu.s. This is one of the best preserved 
bits of old Rome. The walls of brick are from three to five feet 
thick, the rooms nearly forty high. On some of the ceilings and 
walls are distinct specimens of Arabesque. Thence to look at 
the holy staircase of the Lateran, said to be of the house of 
Pontius Pilate. The feelings that would arise on standing before 
7* 



130 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 



such an object is checked by doubt that will come up as to its 
authenficity. No one is permitted to mount the stairs except on 
his knees ; and being of stone, they are kept covered with wood 
to preserve them from being worn out. In the Church of Santa 
Croce in Gerusalemme, founded by St. Helen, th« mother of Con- 
stantine, is preserved, 'tis said, the cross of one of the thieves 
crucified with Jesus. 

In the Gallery of the Colonna Palace we saw this morjaing 
several fine portraits and a beautiful St. Agnes, by Guido, with 
that heavenward look he delighted to painb, and painted, so well. 
In the magnificent Hall of the Palace we were shown the por- 
trait of the Colonna who commanded at Lepanto. In the after- 
noon we went for the second time to the Vatican, How the most 
beautiful things teach you to admire them ! Genius, which is by 
its essence original, embodies its idea, the totality whereof even 
the most genial sympathy cannot at first take in. By repetition the 
whole spirit of the creation is imbibed, and only then does the mind 
receive the full image of what it beholds, learning thus, by a 
Xiecessary process, from beauty itself to appreciate its quality. 
Thus tlie Apollo will go on growing into our vision until we 
can, if not entirely, yet deeply enjoy its inexhaustible beauty. 
On coming out of the Vatican we walked again into St. Peter's. 
Are i-ts proportions perfect and its colors all in unison, or is it its 
vastaess that tones down all the constituents to harmony ? It 
fills me always with delight and wonder. 

I'ovvaras sunset we drove to the church of St. Peter, in Monto- 
Tio, whence, trom tiie terrace, is a sweepmg view of Rome. We 
lOOKeu down over the '•Eternal City." Directly in front, anil 
east 01* us about a mile, was the majestic Colosseum. Between 
us and the Tiber was the Camp of Porsenna, To the left, 
beyond the Tiber, was once the Campus Martius, now the most 
thickly peopled quarter of modern Rome. An epitome of a large 
portion of the world's history lay at our feet. Tliere stood liie 



THE PANTHEON. 13i 



Capitol of the Republic, and beyond, the ruins of tlie Palace of 
tlie Caesars, and all about us were the Palaces and Churches of 
their papal heir. Back of the Clmrch is the Fontana Paolina, 
built of stone from the Forum of Nerva, by Pope Paul V., a 
Borghese. The water gushes out through five apertures in 
volume enough for a Swiss cascade. 

Tuesday, March 7th. 

We drove out this morning to the Villa Pamphili, the grounds 
of which, having a circumference of four miles, are the most 
extensive of the Roman villas. Here are stately umbrella-shaped 
pines. Fields of grass, thickly studded with flowers, veritied wlmt 
had hitherto been to me a poetic fiction. From the top of the house 
is a wide noble prospect. Returning, we drove through part of 
the Jews' quarter to the Square of Navona, the largest in Rome, 
in ancient times a race-course, now a vegetable market, la the 
afternoon we went to the Pantheon, the best preserved remnant of 
ancient Rome, built by Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus, as 
the great Hall of the public batlis by him established, afterwards 
converted into a temple to Jupiter, then to all the Gods, whence 
its name, and a-s early as the seventh century consecrated a 
Christian Church, under the name of St. Mary of the Martyrs, 
by Pope Boniface IV., who buried under the chief altar twenty. 
eight wagon loads of relics of the martyrs. The light (and rain) 
comes in through a wide circle left open at the top of the dome. 
The pavement is of porphyry. Here Raphael is buried. We 
drove afterwards to the villa Borghese, crowded with ancient 
marble, among which is a long series of busts of Roman Em;)e- 
rors in " antique red." The heads are nearly all of one type, and 
denote the energetic, practical character of the Romans. Tlie 
statue of Pauline, one of the treasures of tlie villa, is the most beau- 
tiful work I have seen of Canova. Returning, we saw near tlie. 
gate some rich Italian faces. Italy reminds one at times of a- 



132 SCENES AND THOUGHTS TN EUROPE. 



beautiful Guido Magdalen, her tearful countenance upturned 
towards heaven, so lovely in her affliction, such subdued passion 
in her luxurious features, such hope in her lucent eyes. 

Wkdnesday, March 8tK. 

We spent most of the morning in the studios of sculptors, and 
the afternoon in churches. What a multiplication of the human 
form in marble ! The Churches are peopled with statues brown 
with age, and in the studios they dazzle you with youthful white- 
ness. 

To describe in verse the surface of a man's mind is not to 
write poetry ; nor is the imitation of the human body the exercise 
of a fine Art. The Sculptor's function is to concentrate in one 
body the beauty and character of many. When he does this he 
creates, and until he creates, he is not up to his vocation. Nature 
is not always beautiful, but at the bottom of all her phenomena 
is the spirit of beauty. Her essence is beauty, and this essence 
the worker with the chisel must extract and then embody, else is 
he a barren Artist. 

We saw this morning Guide's Aurora. Here is a subject most 
apt for pictorial representation. The idea has sufficient intensity 
to irradiate the whole body. In few large compositions is there 
soul enough in the thought to animate the members ; or if there 
be fire, there is lack of beauty. Here the idea, the parent of the 
whole work, is both strong and beautiful, and the execution being 
correspondent, the effect is complete. Afterwards, in the Minerva 
Church, we saw a statue of Christ, by Michael Angelo. It wants 
character and beauty. The subject is not suited to Michael 
Angelo's. genius. 

.Thursday, March 9th. 

We visited this morning the studio of Wolf, a German sculptor 
of reputation. A sweet dancing girl and a graceful Diana 
attracted us most. The foreign Artists in Italy seem well nigh 



AN ENGLISH SERMON 135 

to take the lead of the native, owing, probably, to the enjoyment 
of greater liberty, the Italians being more under the chilling sway 
of academical rules, and the influence of the by no means pure 
example of Canova. We walked afterwards in the garden of the 
Villa Medici, the prison of Galileo during his trial, now the French 
Academy ; and into its hall of plaster casts, where is a collection 
of the best antiques. This is going into the highest company. 
These are genuine aristocrats, choice speci'mens of manhood and 
womanhood. With many of them, time and ignorance have 
dealt roughly. Some are withcut arms, others without legs, 
and some without heads, but still they live. In their mythology, 
what a Poem the ancient Greeks gave birth to and bequeathed 
to the world. We next went to one of the Churches, to hear a 
sermon from an English Catholic Prelate. During Lent, there 
is daily preaching in many of the Churches. Chairs were set for 
two hundred persons, but there were present not more than fifty. 
The preacher was evidently a man of intellect, but dry and argu- 
mentative. The drift of his discourse was to show that priests 
are essential to salvation. 

Men, with all their selfishness, and perhaps through a modifica- 
tion thereof, have ever been prone to give up their affairs in trust 
to others, the trustees dividing themselves into the three hitherto 
inevitable classes, the legal, the medical, and the theological. 
Some even avail themselves to the full of all these helps and sub- 
stitutes, abandoning the conduct of their worldly possessions to 
their man of business, their bodies passively to their physician, 
and their souls as passively to their pastor. These languid nega- 
tives are of course few. By degrees the axiom is getting to be 
valued, that to thrive, whether secularly or spiritually, a man 
must look to his own interests. People are beginning to discern, 
that healtii is not a blessing in the gift of Doctors, that Religion 
is independent of hierarchies, and that the first preachers of 
Christianity were quite a differeKt kind of men from most of the 



134 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

atest. Some men are pre-eminently endowed to develope and 
feed the spiritual element of our nature, and most reverently do 
I reo-ard and cordially hearken to such wherever I meet with 
them. As in the preacher before me, I perceived no marks 
of such inspiration, and as there was neither eloquence nor art to 
give his discourse the attraction of an intellectual entertainment, 
we soon left the church, a movement which can be effected here 
without notice. He handled his argument not without skill, and 
doubtless the sermon was edifying to most of his auditors, their 
minds having been drilled by him and his colleagues into the 
habit of acquiescence. 

The ordinary service was going on at the same time inde- 
pendently in a side chapel, where a very aged ecclesiastic, in 
a white satin embroidered robe, was saying mass, which to us, in 
the outskirts of the English Company, was quite audible. He 
was entirely alone, having no assistant at the altar and not a sin 
gle worshipper ; until just before he concluded, a bright-faced 
boy, ten or twelve years of age, came in with a long staff, to put 
out the tall candle. Ere the venerable father had ceased praying, 
tlie little fellow had the extinguisher up, thrusting it now and then 
half over the flame with playful impatience. The instant the 
old man had finished, out went the candle, and the boy, taking 
he large missal in his arms, walked off, looking over towards us 
for notice, and restraining with difficulty his steps to the pace of 
the aged priest, who tottered after him. 

On leaving the church, we went for the first time to tho 
Borghese Gallery, freely open to strangers, and to artists, ot 
whom, in the different rooms, there were several taking copies. 
Strangers in Rome owe much to the unexampled liberality of the 
Italian nobles, in opening to them the treasures of their palaces 
and villas. 

In the afternoon to the Vatican, where again we had a cloudy 
sky, and were therefore again disappointed before the great fres- 



SALVATOR ROSA. 135 



cocs of Raphael, which, from the darkness of the rooms wherein 
tlvey are painted, hav'n't light enotigh even on the sunniest days. 
On coming out we took our accustomed walk up under the dome 
of St. Peter's. 

Friday, March 10th. • 

We visited this morning the Corsini Gallery, in which is the 
bound Prometheus of Salvador Rosa, with his fiery stamp upon it. 
The horror which a lesser genius could excite, cannot be subdued 
by any mastery of art. The keeper of the rooms, with the hostile 
feeling reciprocated among the inhabitants of the different sections 
of Italy, remarked, that none but a Neapolitan would choose so 
bloody a subject. Another remarkable picture in this collection, 
is a head of Christ bound with tlwrns, by Guercino. The agony, 
the fortitude, the purity are all there, and in the upcast translu- 
cent eyes is an infinite depth of feeling, as of mingled expostula- 
tion and resignation, that recalls vividly the touching words, " My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" 'Tis one of the 
masterpieces of Rome. 

At twelve we found ourselves in St. Peter's, to witness the 
ceremony which takes place every Friday during Lent. The 
Pope, attended by his household and a numerous body of Cardi- 
nals and other prelates, says prayers successively at several dif- 
ferent altars. The Swiss Guard, in the old-time costume with 
pikes, formed a hollow oblong, within which the Pope and the 
whole cortege of priests knelt. For the Pope and Cardinals a 
cushion was provided ; the others knelt on the marble pavement. 
The Pope prayed inaudibly, and seemed to do so with heart. 
The strange uniform of the Guards, the numerous robed priests 
kneeling behind their chief, the gorgeous towering vaults above 
them, and the sacred silence, made a beautiful scene. 

In the afternoon we drove to the Villa Mills, built above the 
ruins of the House of Augustus, on Mount Palatine. Through a 



136 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

door ill the garden, round which clustered lemons, roses, and 
oranges, we descended to several of the rooms of Augustus, the 
floor whereof is about thirty feet below the present surface. From 
various points in the garden we had views of the majestic rem- 
nants of imperial Rome. — the. Colosseum, the baths of Caracalla, 
the temple of Peace, part of the Forum, the temple of Vesta, the 
Pyramid of Caius Cestius, the tomb of Cecilia Metella, inter- 
spersed with convents and churches and scattered building*. 
Over the wall on the southern side of the Villa grounds, you look 
directly down upon some remains of the Circus Maximus, which 
occupied the valley between the Palatine and Aventine Hills, and 
where took place the rape of the Sabines. It will take a long 
while for Niebuhr to efface belief in the reality of those early 
Roman doings. At last we ascended to a terrace built over a 
spot where had once been a temple of Juno, whence was a pros- 
pect of modern Rome with its throng of cupolas. We next 
mounted the Capitol Hill, to go into the Church Aracseli. 

Satttrday, March 11th. 

We visited this morning the Convent of the Sacre Cceur on the 
Trinitd del Monte. This is a sisterhood of French ladies, some of 
them noble, devoted to the education of the upper classes. The 
establishment looked the model of neatness. The pupils, who 
had a uniform dress, rose and curtsied to us as we entered the 
rooms. They looked healthy and happy. The sisters had the 
manner and tone of well-bred ladies, chastened by seclusion from 
the rivalries of the world. It is one of the results of Catliolic 
organization and discipline, that in an institution like this, a field 
of utility is opened to those whom disappointment, or distaste for 
excitement, or a natural proneness to piety, disposes to withdraw 
from the world. Through the principle of association, the various 
resources of many are centred upon a high object, and much 
activity, that would otherwise have lain dormant or have been 



CONVENT HYMN. 137 



wasted, is turned to excellent account. From one of the lofty 
dormitories, with its numerous clean white beds, we looked out 
into a broad garden belonging to the convent, and beyond this to 
the Ludovisi grounds and Villa. 

Afterwards, at the room of Flatz, a Tyrolese painter, we were 
charmed with the artist and his works. His subjects are all reli- 
gious, aild are executed with uncommon grace and feeling. A 
pupil of his, too, Fink, is a young man of promise. 

There are people with minds so exclusively religious, that 
Religion does not, — as is its office, — sustain, temper, exalt their 
being ; it fills, it is their being. When the character is upright 
and simple, such persons become earnest and calm ; when other- 
wise, they are officious and sentimental. If their intellect is 
sensuous, they delight in the imagery and manipulating ceremo- 
nies of the Catholic worship, and then, having of course, by their 
original structure, no intellectual breadth or power, they will be 
liable, under the assaults of a picture-loving mind and absorbing 
devotional feeling, to become Romanists even in Rome itself! 

Sunday, March 12th. 

This afternoon we returned to the chapel of the Sacr6 Cmir, 
to hear the music at the evening benediction. 'Twas a hymn 
from the sisterhood, accompanied by the organ. The service 
commenced silently at the altar, round which curled profuse in- 
cense, that glowed before the lighted candles like silver dust. The 
few persons present were kneeling, when the stillness was broken 
by a gentle gush of sound from the invisible choir up behind us. 
It came like a heavenly salutation. The soft tones seemed mes- 
sengers out of the Infinite, that led the spirit up to whence they 
had come. At the end of each verse, a brief response issued 
from deep male voices at the opposite end of the church, near the 
altar, sounding like an earthly answer to the heavenly call. Then 
again were the ears possessed by the feminine harmony, that 
poured itself down upon the dim chapel like an unasked blessing. 



438 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Monday, March 13th. 

This morning, at the Spada Palace, we saw the statue of Pom- 
pey, which " all the while ran blood " when Caesar fell under the 
blows of the conspirators in the Capitol. 'Tis a colossal figure, 
bout ten feet in height, of fine character, dignified, vigorous, and 
ife-like. We drove afterwards out to the English burying-ground, 
where lie the ashes of Shelley, " enriching even Rome," as his 
wife had a right to say. I revere the character, and admire the 
genius of Shelley, yet I was not moved by the presence of his 
tomb. Emotion cannot be summoned at will, I have at times, 
in a holy spot, found myself in a state of utter insensibility, and, 
instead of turning my eyes inward under its spirit-moving influ- 
ence, have caught my lips playing with the reminiscence of a 
jest, as irrepressible as it was impertinent in such a place. For 
all that, the visit was not barren ; the feeling would come after- 
wards. 

In the afternoon, we visited the rooms of Overbeck, the distin- 
guished German painter, a great master in drawing and composi- 
tion. Like Flatz, his subjects are all scriptural. 

Very few artists being able to achieve the highest triumph in 
execution, which is the transparence and vivid beauty of healthiest 
life, addict themselves naturally, in a critical age, to an emulous 
cultivation of those qualities which ^ii-ough study are more attain- 
able, and then attach to them a kind of importance which they do 
not deserve. This seems to be the case just now with composi- 
tion, an element which may shine in a picture unworthy of per- 
manent regard, and which stands related to the genial quality in 
Art as the narrative does to the poetical in a printed volume. 
Under genuine inspiration, the parts of a work will always, when 
Art is out of its first rudiments, put themselves together compe- 
tently to the development of the idea, although the artist may not 
excel in composition ; but from the most skilful combination of 
the constituent parts, will never be generated that unfading charm 



COLOSSEUM BY MOONLIGHT. l3» 

of life and beauty, which genius alone can impart, and the produc- 
tion whereof even genius cannot explain. In short, composition 
is the intellectual department of painting, and will be ineffective 
until vivified by the fire of feeling. 

We walked afterwards through the gallery of the Capitol, and 
then to the Tarpcian rock. 

Tuesday, March 14th. 

We commenced the day, which was bright at last, with a walk 
on the Pincian. Visited in the morning a second time the rooms 
of the German painter Flatz, and his pupil. We drove after- 
wards through the sunny air past the Forum and Colosseum out 
to the grand church of St. John of the Lateran, where, in the 
court, is the finest obelisk in Rome, brought, like the others, from 
Egypt, the land of obelisks. It is a single shaft of red granite, 
more than a hundred feet higrh. 

In the afternoon, we walked again on the Pincian, amidst a 
throng of people from all parts of the world, in carriages, on 
horseback, and on foot. How seldom you meet a fine old coun- 
tenance ; one that has been enriched by years, that has the au- 
tumnal mellowness of joyous and benignant sensations. Oftener 
you see on old shoulders a face corrugated and passion-ploughed, 
that may be likened to a riv^-bed, which, deserted by the turbi(i'. 
spring flood, shows a hard, parched surface, bestrewn with drift- 
wood and unsightly fragments, that tell how high the muddy tor- 
rent has revelled. At six, we went to see the Colosseum by 
moonlight. The wondrous old pile grows more eloquent still at 
night ; its vastness expands, its majesty grows more majestic ; the 
dimness of the hour seems congenial to its antiquity. The patches 
of moonlight glistening among its arches, look like half revela- 
tions of a thousand mysteries that lie coiled up in its bosom. It 
has the air of a mystic temple sprung out of the gloom, for a 
Sybil to brood in and prophesy. 



140 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

Wednesday, March :j5th. 

This morning, we drove out of the Porta del Popolo, the north- 
ern gate, a mile and a half just over the bridge of Mole, and 
returning along the right bank of the Tiber, with the Villa ]Ma- 
dama and Monte Mario on the right, we re-entered Rome near St. 
Peter's. Thence, passing through the busiest part of the modern 
city, we drove between the Palatine and Aventine hills, round the 
Colosseum, by the three columns that are left of the Forum of 
Nerva, into the gay Corso, passing thus, suddenly, as we do 
almost every day, from amidst the gigantic brown fragments that 
silently tell of the might of ancient Rome, into the bustle and 
ostentation of a modern capital. I spent an hour afterwards in 
Thorwaldsen's studio, with a still growing enjoyment. Great 
Poems are incarnations of a nation's mind, whence in weaker 
times it may draw nourishment to help to renew its vigor. The 
creations of Shakspeare and Milton rear themselves the steadfast 
mountains of the mental world of England, up to which the peo- 
ple can at all times ascend to inhale a bracing air. So, too, after- 
sculptors will be able to refresh themselves at the clear fountain 
of Thorwaldsen's purity and simplicity. 

Thursday, March 16th. 

We drove out to the new St. Paul'»that they are building on the 
site of the old one, more than a mile out of the St, Paul Gate. 
This Church is one of the largest, and the Pope is rebuilding and 
adorning it in a style of unmatched magnificence. Nations and 
systems cannot, any more than individuals, pause in their career. 
Each must fulfil its destiny. From the bosom of Eternity they 
are launched forth, to perform a given circuit, and long after 
they have culminated, they continue, though under relaxed mo- 
mentum, to give out sparks of the original fire, and decline con- 
sistently to their end. The Papal State is loaded with a growing 
debt; Rome has churches enough for ten times its actual popula- 



VIEW FROM THE CAPITOL. 141 



tion ; advancing civilisation rejects more and more the sensuous 
as an auxiliary to the spiritual. Yet, at an enormous cost, this 
church is re-erected, dazzling with pillars and marble and gold 
capacious to hold tens of thousands, though distant from the city 
in the blighted Campagna ; a token not only that the spirit of 
Romanism is unchanged, but that it has yet the will and vigor, 
in the face of material difficulties, and in defiance of civilisation, 
to manifest itself in mediaeval porap and unchristian magnificence. 
On getting back within the walls of the city, we turned into 
the Via Appia, and stopped at the tomb of the Scipios, down into 
which I groped with a lighted candle twenty or thirty feet below 
the present surface, in a labyrinth of low vaults, where I saw 
several vertical slabs with inscriptions. After dinner, we drove 
to the Villa Mattel, whence there is a fine view southward, of the 
aqueducts and mountains. Late in the afternoon I ascended to 
the top of the tower of the Capitol. The sky was cloudless, and 
the unparalleled scene seemed to float in the purple light. Moun- 
tain, plain, and city, the eye t-ook in at a sweep. From fifteen to 
forty miles in more than a semicircle ranged the Appenines, the 
nearest clusters being the Alban and the Sabine Hills. Contract- 
ing the view within these, the eye embraced the dim Campagna, 
in the midst of which, right under me, lay the noisy city beside 
its silent mother. Looking down from such an elevation, the 
seven hills, unless you know well their position, are not traceable ; 
and most of the ruins, not having, as when seen from the plain, 
the relief of the sky, grow indistinct; only the Colosseum towers 
broadly before you, a giant among dwarfs, challenging your 
wonder always at the colossal grandeur of Imperial Rome. In 
the west, St. Peter's broke the line of the horizon. From 
countless towers, spires, cupolas, columns, obelisks, long shadows 
fell upon the sea of tiled roof. The turbid Tiber showed itself 
here and there, winding as of old through the throng. I gazed 
until, the sun being set, the mountains began to fade, the ruins to 



142 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

be swallowed up in the brown earth, and the whole fascinating 
scene wore that lifeless look which follows immediately the sink- 
ing of the sun below the horizon, the earth seeming suddenly to 
fall asleep. 

Friday, March 17th. 

Through the high walls that enclose the gardens and Villas in 
Italy, we drove out to the Villa Albani, reputed the richest about 
Rome in antique sculpture. There is a statue of Tiberius, which 
makes him shine among several of his imperial colleagues in grace 
and manly proportions, a distinction which he probably owe's to the 
superiority of his Artist ; a fragment from the bas-reliefs of the 
Parthenon at Athens, and other esteemed antiques in half size and 
miniatui'e, amidst a legion of busts, among them one of Themisto- 
cles, of much character. Unhappily, on these occasions you can- 
not give yourself up to the pleasure of believing that you gaze on 
•the features of one of the great ancients ; for even the identity of 
the bust is seldom unquestionable, and of course still less so is 
the likeness. It were a goodly sight to behold an undoubted por- 
trait of Plato, or Socrates, ov Brutus. The villa is in a florid 
style of architecture, and the grounds are laid out in straight 
walks between walls of evergreen. The day was balmy, and 
the parterre walls were alive with lizards darting about in the 
sunshine. We next drove out of the St. John Gate to get a near 
view of the aqueducts, which have been well likened to Giants 
striding across the Campagna. On re-entering the Gate, the front 
of St. John of the Lateran presented itself very grandly. It is 
purer than the faqade of St. Peter's, in which the perpendicular 
continuity is broken, g^ fault almost universal in the fronts of Ita- 
lian churches. The statues, too, on the St. John, from being co- 
lossal and somewhat crowded, have a better effect than statues in 
that position generally have. 

Ill the afternoon we drove and walked in the grounds of tho 



SCIARRA GALLERY. 143 



Villa Borghese. The entire circuit is at least two miles, and the 
grounds are varied both by art and nature. Strangers can liardly 
be sufficiently grateful to the family that opens to them such a 
resource. I should have stated, when speaking of the statuary in 
the villa, that the original and celebrated Borghese collection of 
antiques was sold to the Paris Museum, in the reign of Napoleon, 
for tliii'teen millions of francs. Tlie present collection has been 
made since that period. 

Saturday, March 18th. 

This morning we began ^v•ith the Sciarra Gallery, one of the 
most choice in the world. In a single room, not more than 
twenty-five feet square, were thirty or forty pictures, estimated to 
be worth three hundred thousand dollars, comprising master. 
pieces by Titian, Raphael, Guido, Leonardo da Vinci, and others. 
For the celebrated Modesty and Charity of Leonardo, the size 
of which is hardly four feet by three, the good-humored old keeper- 
told us an English nobleman offered fifty thousand doVars. These 
marvels of the pencil teach with glowing emphasis, that the es- 
sence of the Art is beauty. If this be a truism, the crowds of 
prosaic works one daily passes justify its reiteration. Thence 
we went to Mount Palatine, to explore the ruins of part of the 
Palace of the Csesars, adjoining the house of Augustus wliich 
we had already seen. Each of his successors for several ge- 
nerations seems to have enlarged the imperial residence, until, 
under Nero, it spread over the whole of the Palatine and Cselian 
hills and part of the Esquiline. What we saw to-day covers se- 
veral acres. The habitable part, of which there are only left 
fragments of thick bri.ck walls, was built on high arches. The 
view from the top embraces the greater part of the ancient and 
modern cities, extending over the Campagna to the mountains. 
'Tis now a vegetable-garden, and where Emperors have dined, 
grows a luxuriant crop of artichokes. A briglit-looking woman, 



144 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

who was peeling onions, and who plucked for us a boquet gf hya- 
cinths, told us that she paid for it seventy dollars annual rent. 
From the Palace we drove to the tomb of Augustus, where 
among other bones we saw the half of a skull, which the keeper 
protested was ancient Roman, and was ready to protest to be tiiat 
of Augustus. 

In the afternoon we went to the rooms of Maes, a Belgian 
Artist of talent, and then drove out to the church on Monte Mario, 
whence the view is very fine. A lad, who had care of the church, 
told us, that in the Convent adjoining lived two Dominican friars, 
there not being means to support more. Each of them receives 
five dollars a month, besides twenty cents a day for saying mass, 
making about eleven dollars a month to each for clothing and 
food. A man here can keep his body well covered with flesh for 
ten cents a day. His meat will be chiefly maccaroni and his 
drink water, a good fare for longevity. Be it as it may, there is 
no class of people in Italy with fuller skins than the friars. 

In the evening we saw, at about seven o'clock, the long bright 
tail of a comet. 

Sunday, March 19th. 

This morning I heard a sermon at the Church of the Jesuits. 
The subject was the perfections of Joseph as husband and fatlier, 
who, the preacher often repeated, had all the realities of the ma- 
trimonial union without its chief function, and performed all the 
functions of a father without having the reality. He enforced, 
happily and with pure feeling, from the example of Joseph, the 
sanctity of the marriage tie, and the supreme obligation of duty. 
It was a practical, animated, sound discourse, which commanded 
earnest attention from his audience, that consisted of the middle 
and lower classes, and was very numerous, filling nearly the 
whole area of the large church. 

In the afternoon, we went to hear a celebrated French Jesuit 



FRENCH JESUIT. 145 



preach,. at the church called St. Louis of the French. In a dis- 
course of more tlum an hour, to which a large, educated audi, 
tory listened with unwearied attention, the preacher summed up 
with sivill and eloquence the chief arguments of the Roman Ca- 
tholic Cliureh against Protestantism. In an emphatic and adroit 
manner Jie presented the best that can be said in flivor of the unity 
and infallibility of the Roman Church. He laid down, that Re- 
ligion could be preserved but by one of three means ; either, first, 
by God making a separate revelation thereof to each individual 
man ; or secondly, by his having embodied it in a book, which 
each was to interpret for himself; or thirdly, by instituting a 
Church to whose guardianship he committed it. After endeavor- 
ing to show, that the third was the only means consistent with the 
simplicity of the divine government, he went on to set forth, that 
Christ established one Church, that that Church was by its nature, 
origin, and design, infallible ; and in a brilliant sophistical passage 
he attempted to demonstrate the inherent necessity of intolerance 
towards doctrine, concluding with the position, that without such 
a church there would be no faith, no religion. 

What a pitiful piece of work were man, if to his fellow. man he 
owed the very enjoyment of his highest faculty. How igno'ble 
and parasitical must tliat Jesuit deem his brother men ! But it is 
just and inevitable, that they who by men have been unduly ex- 
alted, should look down upon those who have bowed the neck 
under thei yoke. Without any direct knowledge of the fact, it 
might be inferred, that no class of men have a lower opinion of 
mankind than the Romish priesthood. No religion without the 
Church ! Why, the Roman and all other churches that have ever 
existed or will ever exist, are effects of religion, not its cause, — 
the creatures of man, not his masters — and, as such, obsequious 
ever to his movements ; sucking blood when he has been cruel, 
relentless when he has been intolerant, humane when he has be- 
come humanized ; presumptuous towards his inactivity, humble 
8 



146 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

towards his independence ; aristocratic in one country, demo- 
cratic in another — here upholding slavery, there denouncing it ; 
always a representative of the temporary condition of society. 
Why were the Catholic priests more openly rapacious and lust, 
ful before the Reformation than since ? Why is the priest in 
Spain different from the priest in Sweden, or the Catholic priest 
of the United States more true to his chief vow than his fellow 
in Italy ? There is but one unity, and that is the universal in- 
nateness in man of the religious sentiment. The form wherein 
it clothes, the creed wherein it embodies itself, depend upon civi- 
lisation, temperament, climate, policy, and to these the priest ine- 
vitably fashions himself. But as effects reflect often back upon 
their causes, creeds and hierarchies re-act, with more or less 
power, upon Religion itself; and it is a symptom of a baleful 
influence, and of an unmanly passiveness in man, when so de- 
grading a doctrine gets to be part of his creed, as that he owes 
his religion to his priest. 

To learn what priestcraft is, we need not however go so far as 
Catholic Italy, although there its deformity is the most revolting 
in Christendom. Some very unequivocal exhibitions of it may 
be seen among the Protestant isms of our country, iiotwithsland- 
ing that thje mass of our population is in mental freedom and 
strength raised above that of Europe, and that comparatively, 
through the severance of Church and State, we enjoy religious 
liberty. Priesthood, perfprming a necessary part in human soci- 
eties, is, like the other institutions for the furtherance of man's 
estate, subject under all forms and circumstances to corruptions. 
The benefits resulting from a priesthood, like the benefits result- 
ing from a magistracy, are purely those of organization. In the 
earlier stages of culture, or when humanity is partially developed, 
priests form a distinct authorized power, which, being men, it is 
of course their tendency to abuse. As society through individual 
culture developes itself, this organization becomes more and more 



THORWALDSEN'S ST. JOHN. 147 



merged in the general social one. Priests are first dropped by 
the state and then by individuals, and the religious element, re- 
incorporated, as it were, into the whole nature, receives its culti- 
vation along with the other nobler sentiments of man. Rituals 
and Hierarchies are but the forms through which for a time it 
suits Religion to express and cherish herself; they are transient, 
only Religion is perennial. Forms, in their healthiest state, 
waste somewhat of the substance they are designed to set forth. 
At their birth, they are tainted with insincerity ; when mature, 
they grow hypocritical ; and in their old age, they get to be bare- 
faced falsehoods, and then they die. In religion, as in politics, 
and in all things, man becomes weak in proportion as he surren- 
ders himself to the power or guidance of others. This surrender 
is totally different from helpful co-operation, as well as from re- 
ciprocal subordination according to inborn superiorities. 

Monday, March 20th. 

At Thorwaldsen's studio, I stood again long before the St. John 
preaching in the wilderness. This is a group of twelve parts, 
ranged in a line declining on either side from the central figure, 
to suit its destination, which is the tympanum of a church 
in Copenhagen. St. John, in his left hand a cross, which 
serves him too as a staff, and his right raised towards Heaven, 
stands in the centre, with a countenance mild and earnest, his 
look and attitude well expressing the solemnity of the tidings he 
proclaims. 

The first figure on his right is a man, apparently about thirty, 
with the left foot on a high stone, and one elbow on his knee, his 
chin resting in his hand. His fixed look is not turned up as if to 
catch the falling words of the speaker, but is outward as though 
his mind were busy' with some4,hing that had gone before. — Next 
to him is a group of two figures, the first a turbaned man of mid- 
dle age, with hands crossed at his waist, in the simplest erect 



148 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

attitude of deep attention, his closely draped light body in the 
most perfect repose, while his bearded countenance is intent upon 
that of St. John with the animated expression of one accustomed 
to thought, and whose mind is now deeply wrought upon by the 
words he hears. Behind him, and gently resting on his shoul- 
der, is a beardless youth, like the elder one before him, who may 
be tiis father, attentive but passive. — The third figure is a mother, 
half kneeling, behind her a boy seven or eight years of age, with 
chin on his hands that are crossed on her right shoulder. — The 
fourth, an old man seated, with long beard and turban, a tranquil 
venerable figure. — The fifth, and last to the right of St. John, is 
a youth recumbent, supporting his upturned head with his left 
arm. 

The first figure on the left of St, John is a boy about fifteen, 
looking up into his face with half open mouth and a beaming 
expression, as if the words he was listening to had unlocked his 
soul. — Next to him is a middle-aged priest, with both hands 
before his breast resting on a staff*. His countenance is strong 
and rugged, and his bl-ows are knit as if his mind were in a state 
of resistance to what he heard. — The third figure is a hunter. 
He looks melted by the preacher, and has an aspect of devout 
acquiescence. By a band he holds a fine dog, upon which is 
fixed the attention of, — the fourth group, two bright children, a 
boy and girl of nine and eight, their faces alive with childish 
pleasure. — Behind them, the fifth figure, is a female seated, their 
mother apparently, who is restraining before her a third younger 
child. — The sixth and last figure is a shepherd, recumbent, with 
open mouth and joyful look. 

This subject is peculiarly fitted to sculpture, from the union of 
perfect bodily repose with mental animation. The conception, 
which. is the happiest possible for such a group ; the ease, life, 
correctness and grace of the figures ; the contrasts in their 
postures, ages, conditions, sex, expression ; the calm power evi' 



I 



TASSO'S HEAD. .49 



dent in the fertility and purity of the invention ; the excellence 
of liie execution j the distribution of the parts, and the vivid cha- 
racter of each figure, make this work one of the noblest of modern 
sculpture. 

In the afternoon we went through the Gallery of the Vatican. 
From an unnecessary and ungracious arrangement, in order to 
sec the pictures, you are obliged to walk nearly the whole length 
of the range of galleries in the two stories, a distance of more 
than a mile, so that you are fatigued when you come in front of 
the pictures, where, moreover, there are no seats. — We went 
afterwards to the church of St. Onofrio, not far from St. Peter's. 
Here I saw a representation in wax of the head of Tasso, from a 
mask taken after death. Were there any doubt as to th.e genu- 
ineness of this head, the cranium were almost sufficient to dispel 
it, being just such a one as is fitted to the shoulders of an excita- 
ble poet. The monks keep it in their library. Another treasure 
they possess is a Madonna and child in fresco, by Leonardo da 
Vinci, which, notwithstanding the injury of time, breathes forth 
the inspiration imparted to it by that wonderful genius. Neither 
this, nor the mask of Tasso, both being in the convent to which 
the church is attached, can be seen by women, except through 
special permission from the Pope. Below in the church is Tas- 
so's Tomb. 

Tuesday, March 21st. 

At the rooms of Vellati, an Italian painter of landscapes and 
hunting pieces, we saw this morning the Magdalen of Correggio 
recently brought to light, Vellati having discovered it under 
another picture which had been painted over it, and which he 
bought for fifteen dollars. With great labor, by means of the 
point of a needle, the upper painting was removed without injur- 
ing the gem beneath it. Its size is about fifteen inches by twelve, 
and the price asked for it is five thousand pounda sterling ; but 



150 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

its value cannot be counted in money. It is the duplicate of the 
celebrated picture at Dresden. In the same rooms was a fine 
landscape by Rembrandt. 

In the Piazza del Popolo is a meagre exhibition of pictures, the 
best painters always drawing amateurs to their private rooms. 
We went afterwards to the Farnesian gardens, which are entered 
from the Forum, to see remains of the palaces of Nero and Cali- 
gula and of the House of Augustus. We groped down into the 
baths of Livia. We walked through the Forum to the Colosseum, 
and afterwards in the Dorghese Gardens. 

Wednesday, March 22d. 

This morning we saw the Cenci again. What a gift of genius, 
to reproduce such a face in all its tremulous life ! With a deep, 
awful, innocent look-, it seems to peer into your soul and pray 
you for sympathy. Doubt has been thrown upon its genuineness. 
If it be a creation and not a portrait, it is the more wonderful. 
Its character is so perfectly in unison with the mysterious heart- 
rending story of Beatrice Cenci, that, had it been discovered long 
years after her tragic end and without any clue to its origin, it 
might and probably would have been appropriated to her. We 
d'-ove afterwards to the church of St. Peter in chains, to see for 
the second time the Moses of Michael Angelo. I observed to-day, 
that with the instinct of genius (in the heads of the antique the 
ear is further forward) he has placed the ear far back, which 
heightens the intellectual character of the head. In gazing at 
this powerful statue again, I felt that in Art 'tis only beauty that 
ensures constancy. The Moses is grand and imposing, but one 
does not look forward to a third visit with that anticipation of 
growing enjoyment, with which one goes back to the Apollo or 
the Laocoon. Liberate the Laocoon from the constraints of force 
and pain, and it would stand before you a body pre-eminent for 
beauty and justness of proportion. On the other hand, suppose 



I 



CARDINAL FESCH'S GALLERY. 151 

the body a common one, and the work sinks to a revoUinc 
mimicry of corporeal suffering. 

One who resides long in Rome is liable to be sucked back into 
the past. Beliind him is an ocean of movement and thought, out 
of which rise countless fragments and monuments, that daily 
tempt him to exploration. A man might here lean his whole 
being against antiquity and find it a life-long support. The pre- 
sent becomes but a starting point whence he would set out on 
voyages into the past. — Walked out at the Porta Pia. 

• Thursday, March 23d. 

This morning we went to the Villa Negroni, the neglected 
grounds of which are in great part occupied by a vegetable gar- 
den. The sun was just enough veiled by thin clouds to make 
walking agreeable, and although the Villa is far within the walls, 
we strolled for half an hour over twenty or thirty acres of arti- 
chokes, onions and peas, enjoying a wide sweep of tlie mountains. 
— We then went to see Cardinal Fesch's gallery, containing alto- 
gether twenty thousand pictures. Exempt from the olficious 
promptings of a Cicerone, we lounged from room to room, choosing 
for ourselves, and appealing to the voluminous catalogue to back 
our vision or resolve doubts. After one has obtained, by famili- 
arity with galleries, some knowledge of the best masters, it is 
delightful to be let loose in this way upon a new collection. This 
one is celebrated for Flemish and Dutch pictures. 

Great part of the afternoon we passed among the statues of the 
Vatican. The Perseus looks as if Canova had studied the antique 
more than nature. The one sole mistress in Art being Nature, 
all that the artist can gain from the works of others is the best 
mode of seizing the spirit of the one common model, of compassing 
her beauties, so that he shall be able to reproduce what shall be 
at once ideal and natural. Not to imitate their forms, but to ex- 
tract from them how their authors imitated the best of nature so 



152 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

truly, should be the aim of the young sculptor in scanning the 
Apollo or Laocoon. If he can make the wondrous work before 
him reveal the process of the worker, then he can profit by the 
example. If he cannot, then he has not the innate gifts of a high 
artist. But this process of the great masters he will not only fail 
to detect, by copying the forms that have come from human hands, 
but by such servility (for it is servility, be the model Phidias 
himself) he weakens his original powers, and gradually disables 
himself from standing up face to face before his living mistress. 
To the young sculptor, the antique should be an armory where 
he can fortify his native powers for the loving conflict he has to 
wage with vigorous beaming nature. In the Perseus, 'tis appa- 
rent the free play of the artist's mind was under check. You 
behold the result of fine powers in partial servitude. Neverthe- 
less, both it and the boxea-s beside it are noble works. I went 
next to the Capitol, whence, after gazing at the Gladiator, and 
examining the busts of Brutus and Csesar, I walked down into 
the Forum about the base of the Capitol, among piles of broken 
columns. 

Friday, March 24lh» 

This morning I paced St. Peter's to get for myself its dimen- 
sions. Walking without effort, I counted two hundi'ed and sixty 
steps as the length of the great nave, thirty rseven as its width, 
and one hundred and eighty as that of the transept. I counted 
M^enty-six altars. Its statues, mostly of gigantic size, and its 
mosaic pictures, I did not undertake to count. It is reputed to 
have cost about fifty millions of dollars. 

Do not Painting and Sculpture require for their excellence a 
predominance of the sensuous over the meditative ? The Catholic 
religion, the parent, or, at least, the foster-mother of modern 
painting, appeals largely to the senses ; and the Grecian my- 
thology, the nurse of ancient sculpture, still more so. The pre- 



THE POPE. 153 

sent tendency is towards the spiritual and rational, and the fore- 
most people of Europe, the English, possessing the richest written 
poetry in the woi'ld, is poor in the plastic Arts. The great 
features of the German, English and American mind, are deep 
religious and moral emotions, the fruits of whose alliance with 
reason are far-reaching ideas and wide-embracing principles, 
which sway the thoughts and acts of men, but which can be but 
faintly represented in bodily images. 

Tills sounds well enough, but great modern names refute it. 
Your fiir-looking edifice of logic proves but a house of paper 
before the breath of great facts. 

Saturday, March 25th. 

We went to look at the continuation of Cardinal Fesch's collec- 
tion of pictures in a neighboring Pala'ce, but all the best are in 
the first which we saw a few days since. The keeper unlocked 
a large room in which pictures were piled away in solid masses 
one against the other. I noted No. 16,059 on one of them. 
Fourteen hundi'ed dollars a year rent is paid for the rooms the 
whole collection occupies. — We then went to the Minerva Church 
to witness a religious ceremony, in which the Pope is carried on 
the shoulders of his attendants. We got into the church in time 
to have a good view of him seated in a rich throne-like chair, 
which rose just above the dense crowd, borne rocking along, as 
on a disturbed sea of human heads. Carried on either side of him 
were two large fans of peacock's feathers, which might be called 
the sails of the golden vessel. We afterwards walked in the 
Gregorian Gardens, a public walk near the Colosseum, between 
the Cajlian and Palatine Flills. — In the afternoon we drove out to 
see the Torlonia Villa. 

Canova's statuary wants what may be called the under move- 
ment, which Thorwaldsen's has, and which is by no means given 
by pronouncing the muscles, but by a union of sympathy for vital 

8* 



154 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

forms with clean firm manipulation. In Powers this union is 
more intimate than in any modern sculptor. 

Sunday, March 26th. 

We walked this morning on the Pincian Hill, and in the after- 
noon drove three miles out of the Porta Pia to a Roman ruin, 
whence there is a fine view of the mountains and over the Cam- 
pagna all round. Behind us was Rome, and stretching out from 
it over the plain towards the mountains were the aqueducts. 

In Ita'ly, the past is a load chained to the feet of the present. 
The people drags after it, like a corpse, the thought, feeling, act 
of by-gone generations. Tradition comes down like the current 
through a narrow strait, behind which is an ocean. Here, 
more than in most parts of old Europe, the health-giving trans- 
formations go on languidly ; the old is not consumed to give place 
to the hourly created new. The dead and effete is in the way 
of the quick and refreshing. Hence, languor and irregularity in 
the currents of life, causing in the body-politic, obstructions and 
stoppages, and all sorts of social, religious, and political dyspep- 
sias, congestions, rheumatisms, constipations. 

Monday, March 27th. 

Returned with renewed enjoyment to Thorwaldsen's studio. 
Naturalness and ease are his characteristics. He has not a very 
high ideal of beauty, and seems to avoid the nude, which is tlie 
severest test of the artist.^-Thence we went to the Church of St. 
Lorenzo, in Lucina, where a fine voice was singing. To strive, 
by such factitious ceremonies as those of tlie Romish worship, to 
symbolize the divine, is a degradation of the holy tliat is in us. 
It is summoning the solemn spirits of the soul to take part in a 
fantastic pageant of the senses. — We walked afterwards in the | 
Gregorian Gardens, and on the ruins of the Palace of the Caesars. 
Thence to look once more at the marvels of the Sciarra Gallery 



FRASCATI. 155 



— Ill tlie afternoon, on coming out of Crawford's studio, we drove 
over the river to St. Peter's. 

Tuesday, March 28lh. 

We set out at nine for Frascati. Three miles from the St. 
John's Gate we passed under an aqueduct, still used, and near 
the erect ruins of another. The Campagna, without trees or en- 
closures, and almost without houses, is much less level than it 
looks from the heights in Rome. We passed several shepherds 
with their flocks, and parties of peasants ploughing, with large, 
long-horned, long-legged, meek, white oxen. The plough had 
one upright handle, and by this the men supported their weight 
on it, for the purpose of turning up a deeper furrow of the dark 
soil. As we drew near to Frascati, the Alban mountains, which 
from Rome present themselves in a compact cluster, broke up 
into separate peaks, the hill sides covered with olive trees, which 
looked darker and more leafy than I ever saw them, and 
Villas with their wooded grounds shining out distinctly. From 
Frascati, which is not half way up the range of mountains, you 
have a clear view of Rome, twelve miles distant, and of the Medi- 
terranean. Immediately after arriving, we set out for Tusculum, 
which lies almost two miles higher up, near the summit of one 
of the peaks. Before we got half way rain began to fall, and the 
sky was entirely ovei'cast when we reached the ruins, consisting 
of an amphitheatre and part of the walls of the ancient city of 
Tusculum. Descending, we were glad to take shelter in Cicero's 
house, which is on the other side of the ridge. What is left of it, 
is six or eight deep arched rooms in a row, without direct com- 
munication with one another, and all pointing south on a passage 
way or portico. My imagination refused to bring Cicero before 
me otherwise than as looking out from his arches impatiently on 
a rainy day. In a hard shower we descended to the tavern, and 
after dinner drove rapidly back to Rome. 



156 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUrxOPE. 

Wednesday, March 29th. 

What is called the bust of young Augustus, in the Vatican, is 
much like Napoleon when he was General, We walked round 
the Rotunda, where are the Perseus of Canova, the Antinous, the 
Laocoon, and the Apollo. What a company ! and what a privi- 
lege it is to behold them. We drove afterwards to the Colosseum 
and for the first time ascended among the arches. Its vastness 
and massive grandeur never cease to astonish me. 

In the afternoon, when we had looked at the pictures in the 
Academy of St. Luc, we drove to the Pincian Hill at five. The 
whole Heaven was strewn with fragments of a thunderstorm. 
Through them the hue of the sky was unusually brilliant, and 
along the clear western horizon of a pearly green. Standing at 
the northern extremity of the Hill, we had, to the south, the maze 
of pinnacles, cupolas, towers, columns, obelisks, that strike up out 
of the wide expanse of mellow building ; to the right, the sun and 
St. Peter's ; and, to the left, a rural view into the grounds of the 
Borghese Villa, where, over a clump of lofty pines, lay the darkest 
remnants of the storm, seemingly resting on their broad flat sum- 
mits. The gorgeous scene grew richer each moment that we 
gazed, till the whole city and its fleecy canopy glowed in purple. 
We walked slowly towards the great stairway, and paused on its 
top as the sun was sinking below the horizon. 'Twas an Italian 
sunset after a storm, with Rome for the foreground. 

As, after returning to our lodging, I sat in the bland twilight, 
full of the feeling produced by such a spectacle, in such a spot 
and atmosphere, from the ante-room came the sound of a harp 
from fingers that were moved by the soul for music, which is 
almost as common here as speech. After playing two sweet airs, 
it ceased : it had come unbidden and unannounced, and so it went. 
This was wanted to complete the day, although before it began I 
did not feel the want of anything. There are rare moments of 
Heaven on Earth, which, but for our perversity, might be frequent 



ST. MICHAEL. 157 



hours, and sanctify and lighten each day, so full is Nature of 
gifts and blessings, were the heart but Iccpt open to them. But 
we close our hearts with pride and ambition, and all kinds of 
greeds and selfishness, and try to be content with postponing 
Heaven to beyond the grave. 

Thursday, March 30th. 

We visited, this morning, the Hospital of St. Michael, an im- 
mense establishment for the support and instruction of orphans, 
and an asylum for aged poor. Tt is divided into four compart- 
ments ; for aged men, of whom there are now one hundred and 
twenty-five ; for aged women, one hundred and twenty-five ; for 
boys, two hundred and twenty ; and for girls, two hundred and 
seventy-five ; making altogether seven hundred and forty-five, as 
the present number of its inmates. We saw a woman one hun- 
dred and three years old, with health and faculties good. The 
boys are taught trades and the liberal arts, and are entitled to the 
half of the product of their work, which is laid up for them, and 
serves as a capital to start with when they leave the institution at 
the age of twenty ; besides which, each one receives o:|j quitt'ng 
thirty dollars for the same purpose. The girls weave and work 
with the needle, and, if they marry, receive one hundred dollars 
dower, and two hundred if they go into a convent. They, as 
well as the boys, are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and 
vocal music. The superintendant, who was throughout exceed- 
ingly obliging and affable, let us hear several pieces of music, 
admirably executed by a number of the boys. 

The income of this Institution, from foundations made chiefly 
by former Popes, is twenty-eight thousand dollars, to which is 
added upwards of five thousand paid by some of those admitted 
into its walls, or by their patrons. The arrangements and admi- 
nistration seem to be judicious. Order, industry, and contentment, 
were visible in all the compartments. It is a noble institution, 
which docs honor to Rome. 



158 SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

In the afternoon, we visited the Villa Ludovisi, in olden time 
the garden of Sallust. Among several fine antique statues, that 
have been dug up in the grounds, is a magnificent colossal head 
-of Juno. I afterwards walked home from the Colosseum, in the 
warm spring air, taking a look on the way at the Moses of Michael 
Angelo. 

FRIDA.T, March 31st. 

Through narrow lanes, enclosed by high garden walls, we 
walked this morning on Mount Aventine. In the afternoon, we 
drove out to the grotto and grove of Egeria. At the grotto, 
where is the fountain, they pretend to show the stump of a column 
of the original portico, and the trunk of a statue of Numa Pom- 
pilius, in whose day there were neither porticos nor statues. From 
this spot there is a fine view towards Frascati and the hills. On 
the way, we stopped at a church without the walls, where a friar 
showed a marble slab, indented with two foot-prints, which he 
said were made by Jesus Christ, when he quitted St. Peter, to 
whom he appeared to rebuke St. Peter for deserting his post at 
Rome. The impressions are rudely cut, and the toes of the feet 
are all nearly square, but they nevertheless probably keep the 
poor friar and some of his brethren in food and fuel the year round. 

The ancient sculptors had an advantage over the modern, in 
the profusion of poetical subjects ; for every deity of their pro- 
lific mythology is poetical, that is, unites in itself all the perfec- 
tions of a class, and stands as the ideal representative or symbol 
of wants, desires, or ideas; The modern artist is tasked to find 
individuals that have a generic character or significance. The 
defect in sacred subjects is, that they must be draped, and thus 
do not admit of the highest achievement in sculpture, which is, 
to exhibit the human body in its fullest beauty of form and 
expression. 

Saturday, April 1st. 

In the morning we visited the rooms of Mr, Rosseter and Mrt 



ST. PETER'S ' 199 



Terry, two young American painters of promise, and walked 
about the Colosseum. After taking a last look at the beautiful 
resplendent St. Michael of Guido in the Chapel of the Capuchins, 
wc drove to see the drawing of the lottery, which takes place 
every Saturday at noon in the square of Monte Citorio, From a 
balcony, where priests presided, the numbers were drawn to the 
, sound of music, the square well covered with people, mostly of 
the working classes. In the afternoon, after taking another look 
at \'1tllati's Correggio, we walked on the Pincian Hill. 

1 Sunday, April 2d. 

It is four o'clock in the afternoon. Seated against the huge 
base of a pilaster, beneath the dome of St. Peter's, I have taken 
out my pencil to note down what is passing around me. In front, 
near by, directly under the cupola, in the centre of the church, 
is the great Altar, beneath which in the vaults is the tomb of St. 
Peter. The steps that lead down to it are enclosed by a marble 
balustrade, round which burn unceasingly a row of brazen lamps. 
At this altar service is performed only by the Pope himself or a 
Cardinal. Round these lights is a favorite spot for worshippers ; 
there is now kneeling a circle of various classes. People are 
walking, lounging or chatting, or gazing at monuments and pic- 
tures. Across the great nave nearly opposite to me, is a little 
crowd about St. Peter's statue, kissing one after the other his 
oronze toe. Yonder is a knot of soldiers. A group of three, 
the middle one a priest, is passing me in lively chat. A few 
yards to my lefl another priest is on his knees ; his lips move 
rapidly, nor are his eyes idle, nor his nose, which he occupies 
with snuff. Here come a couple of unkempt artisans, laughing. 
Yonder a white poodle is rolling himself on the marble floor, and 
a black cur is trotting up to interrogate him. From under one 
of the great arches is issuing a procession of boys, young acolytes. 
They crowd up to St. Peter's statue, kiss the toe, pass on, kneel 



IGO SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. 

for a few moments before tlie illuminated sanctuary, and then 
disappear in the distance. Not far off stand three priests in ani- 
mated talk. Across the transept, shines down obliquely through 
a lofty arch, an immense band of illuminated dust, denoting the 
height of a western window. I raise my eyes towards the dome ; 
the gigantic mosaic figures on its rich concave are dwarfed like 
fir trees on a mountain. Half way down the great nave, people 
are standing or kneeling a little closer, for service is going on in 
one of the side altars, and vespers are about to be sung in a 
chapel opposite- Many hundreds of visitors and worshippers 
mingled together are in the church, but merely dot thinly the 
area whereon tens of thousands might stand at ease. 

Monday, April 3d. 

Mounted in the morning to the roof and to the top of the dome 
of St. Peter's. What a pulpit whence to preach a sermon on 
ine lusts of power and gold ! 

In the afternoon we took farewell in the Vatican of the Apollo 
and his inspired companions. In the evening we went to hear an 
improvisatrice, Madame Taddei. When it is considered that this 
class of performers study for years their business, and that the 
Italian language runs so readily into verse, the performance loses 
its wonder. Moreover, the imagination has such scope, that they 
can and do spin off a subject very loosely. 

• Wednesday, April 5th, 1843. 

We left Rome at ten in the forenoon. The day was fine and 
our faces were turned homeward, whence, across the sea, blew a 
fresh breeze as we approached Civita Vecchia. 



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